'I am fine'

Somebody asked me how am I feeling today. As is the norm with our species, I didn't offer him the whole truth. "Fine" was the answer he expected and "Fine" was what he got. If it were a different world where people said what they really felt like—or more importantly, what needs to be shared—I would have elaborated on why I'm not "Fine". I might have informed him how I usually feel like an overcrowded fast train that's moving slowly. And not going anywhere in particular. Also, I wake up every morning as if I had undergone rigorous imprisonment during my sleep. My mirror had seen better faces. Of mine. Sometimes I feel like that invisible hand pushing me over the cliff. But I don't fall down because I have better days ahead... to address worse things. At times, I turn cold and blank and don't understand what's going on around me. I try to stay grounded and not get caught talking to myself. The voices in my head are amusing but they never let me interrupt them. Whatever be the reason, they just don't understand me. Sometimes I feel emptier than the “fine”. I've spent better days in poetry when my verses made me the richest jerk on the planet. This was before I became a recluse. Every once in a while, my past relieves me and allows me moments to cherish. Instead of holding them close to myself, I squander them on creating one-liners I don't believe in. More often than not, I don't agree with a lot of theories floating around but I'm loath to confrontations. That explains why I don't defend myself, online or offline. However, there are instances when I can go on and on about what I could have said instead of just "Fine".

Being Single and Valentine's day!

Fourteenth February for everything loneliness sits on. In case if you are in Afghanistan, it's Valentine's Day. One of the finest outcomes of human civilization. In fact, second only to material consumerism. However, there are mutants lurking on this planet who don't know what to do with themselves on this specific day. Better put, they don't know what role they play—if at all, that is—in the grand schemes of romantic permutations. You can't blame them. They are singles who've got nothing to do with tennis. Their singledom manifests itself in their hands every now and then. Or  fingers.  Whatever. So apparently, the worst part about being single is you are……… single. At least it appears that way from the outside. If you're poor too, then God bless you! Being single and broke might teach you invaluable lessons in micro-financing but it doesn't provide the economy with the much-need love-me-love-you boost it annually requires in February, you see? And it is quite bizarre to celebrate Valentine's Day when you pretend to be deeply in love with yourself. You just don't know what to do. You can't blend in. That is passé. So what do you do? You become invisible to the choices that lie ahead of you. For instance, you download movies that got nominated at Oscars. You download movies that got criminally snubbed at Oscars. You somehow go through the day ignoring the colour red that dominates the visuals on your streets and almost everywhere. You wonder whether you should start sniffing around as well. Maybe it's just a one-day phase and you won't need someone tomorrow. However, single life is difficult when both your forearms hate you.

“You are too awesome to be single!” - a girl you like who is not single

Bus-Stop

Your destination is approaching and you're peeking out of the window. You know you've got to get down. But you somehow don't. You stay immobile as if you're protesting against yourself. You don't have the will to move your ass and leave the bus for good. Maybe you're too elated to have finally 'earned' a window seat and you don't want to relinquish it. Moreover, you don't even care that if you fail to act within the allotted 30 seconds, you'll have to get down at the next stop. And commute back home. However, the countdown begins. Kolkata’s bus service, like time and tide, stops for none. You keep looking out of the window, staring into the nothingness that makes you travel between this point and that. You don't even know anymore what is nice and what's not nice. You don't expect anything interesting to happen to your existence. Your friends from school are yet to stare out of the window. Or maybe they are better off in some other place where humanity is not humiliated in overcrowded public transports. You are one of the zombies now and you've accepted your future. You're probably never going to walk and explore or stand and stare. You've learnt that your life is going to rattle on the public roads within the periphery of this godsmitten city. You'll never escape the loud throes that engulfs everybody on this island of chaos nor will you ever travel alone again. You'll always be in the company of strangers who smell worse than you. They'll be called your co-passengers and they shall fight for those imaginary seventh seats that lie in front of them. With such fellow-morons around, perspiration will become your act of silent defiance. You must surrender yourself to make it or else you'll be left behind. On the bus-stop. Outside the bus. The city is not to be blamed nor are its inhabitants. If you really wanted to break free, you would have. By now.

Strangers in the night

One rainy night, he looked out of his window and then peeked into himself. The contrast between crowd and loneliness was evident like never before. He pondered for a minute and then took out his smartphone to foolishly text "I think I'm falling for you!" to an unsuspecting female friend. She, on the other side of the town, picked up her cellphone in return and read his loud message under her noiseless breath. Since chivalry was synonymous with this guy, it was bit of a shock to her to receive something as straightforward as this from a person like him. Well, love indeed makes people act in irreversibly weird ways. So she too decided to act weirder and didn't reply a word. But then she couldn't sleep either and the same was true about her poor cellphone. After all, she kept reading the message again and again as if it revealed her entire future. In the end, she replied "Think again!" unlocking a brand new gate of conversation.