134 Minutes

134 minutes. Aalia would never forget those 134 minutes that changed her life. Though she had never really lived those minutes. Though she had been just a little bigger than her dad's palm when those 134 minutes happened. 134 minutes, and some, without either parent by her side. Just warm blue light and whirring, clicking machines, and occasionally, gentle hands of sympathetic nurses that brushed her newborn cheek.
Her twin had been dying those 134 minutes. Her twin who, she has heard, was clinging on to her in every single scan report. Love, her Ma said... see, even in the womb, she was so full of love.
Maybe she just wanted to take my place, Aalia wanted to retort. But in 18 years, she has never been able to tell Ma that. Not when Anya's baby pic took pride of place in the living room. And the idea of her took up all the space in Ma's heart. Papa would have been good to me, she thought, trying hard to remember the man who died when she was three.
Ma idolised Anya. 'Everything good I did, she would have done better,' thought Aalia. And the naughty stuff, the bad stuff... Ma would splutter with rage, her words choking each other if Aalia so much as hinted that Anya would have been just as bad as her.
Anya was the angel. There was no fighting with the immortalised. They can sin no more. Death gives them the glow of perfection. In 18 years, all Aalia had learned was that the dead were more beloved.
She twisted the dupatta around her hand, winding it tight into a coil as she gazed at the creaking fan. A dog barked in the distance and she heard the faint thud-thud of a motorcycle engine. She stuffed the dupatta into her backpack, hoisting it on her shoulder as she stepped out into the night.
Death. That was not for her. Instead, she'd choose what her Ma referred to as 'fate worse than death'. She laughed out loud as she got onto her boyfriend's bike. Take that, Anya, she thought.

The Great Wizard of Happiness

He wore his humour around him like a cloak. It made him invincible. Worries and fears, those niggling silent agents of erosion, couldn’t get at him through his cloak. He made people laugh, even at themselves, before they realised the joke was on them. And he made them think. He was a great wizard, his magic peppered with kindness, tricks, treats and packets of joy. People went to him when they wanted their questions answered, when they wanted respite or when they just wanted to be. He was The Great Wizard of Happiness, and everyone wanted a piece of him. He was happy.

One day, The Great Wizard of Happiness was performing to a packed hall; like ever, the audience eating out of the palm of his hand, when he spotted Her. She sat there, somewhere in the middle rows, trying to obscure herself in the crowd, but once his eyes connected with hers, there was no looking away. He was surprised that the audience was oblivious to what was happening… wasn’t there a crackling live wire connecting the two of them, sparks flying, singeing those who came too close? How could they miss that? He was more meticulous that day than ever before, hyper aware of each gesture, each word, gripped by the feeling that everything was reaching out to her, and she would decide to stay or to run away solely based on this one act of his.

After the show, he kept his cloak on while smiling and shaking hands with the long line of people who had gathered to see the master magician in person. Children reached out to touch his beard, women all but swooned at his smile and men expressed their grudging admiration. Usually, The Great Wizard of Happiness found these minutes to be the best part of a performance. This connect he had with people, he thrived on it. But today, all he wanted was to meet her and his cloak of humour barely masked his impatience. He could have asked his staff to look for her but he felt an irrational fear that she was just an apparition. That nobody could see her but him. The long line of eager humans dwindled, and he was disappointed to see that she wasn’t in it. The day felt dull and grey around the edges and all he wanted was to go home and think over what had happened. He asked his entourage to go ahead, that he would find his way home.

He sensed her before he saw her. He was lying back on his chair, his head thrown back beyond the chair-back, his long locks like a curtain. He felt the gloom lifting and an inexplicable feeling of lightness filled the room. His locks swayed of their own volition and he felt a giant throb of energy running through him. He opened his eyes and she was at the door, looking down, hesitant, like she was wondering if she should step in and conquer the world or run away and spare them both. Not pausing to think, he jumped up from the chair and started towards her. The cloak of humour felt like a straitjacket around him and he let it go as he reached out to her. When she raised her head and looked into his eyes, he felt she could read his soul. Still not thinking, he gathered her into his arms. Tears glistened in her eyes and he was seized with a mad impulse to kiss her tears away and wrap his cloak around the two of them to keep her safe forever.

The embrace was all he wanted and all he feared. It made him want more, to hold this moment close in the palm of his hand and not scare it away with even a breath. She looked up at his face, leaned up on her toes and brushed her lips softly against his, an invitation that he could not resist but knowing, without knowing, that there would be damnation and condemnation. And in that moment, he didn’t care. He claimed her lips as his own, banishing thoughts and fears into rarely-opened trunks in his mind, finding her passion and reciprocating with his own. When they finally broke apart, he saw that the tears were flowing freely now and that she had an angelic smile on her face. He gathered her close again.

He knew before she spoke that she would talk about going away. That she had stolen a few moments from her Life to find this man whom she connected with, though she had never seen him before. She spoke of her Order, her vows of celibacy and chastity, her words tumbling out like a clear mountain brook that he wanted to drink deep from. He held her tighter as she spoke. He was sure he wouldn’t let her go. She told him of how she would talk to people who had watched his performances, or met him, and try to glean everything she could about him. She told him how she had longed for this day, her desire for him making her limbs slow and heavy even on her busiest days.

He lifted her up as she spoke, settling her into his lap as he sat back in the chair. She still had her arms around his neck, her fingers playing with the hair at the back of his head, making his skin tingle all over. He knew then he had been waiting for her all his life but he feared the hurt that was coming. He tried to wrap his cloak of humour around him, and she laughed at his clumsy attempts to fix the tattered cloak. There would be no forever, she said, and he knew it was true. She might be punished for overstepping her boundaries but she would be brave about it, she said. A knot formed in his throat as he thought about her being brave. He swallowed hard, knowing he would protect her if he could, knowing that it would never be.

They heard the commotion building up outside. It was time to go, she said. That would be her people, checking on why she had overstayed. She would go, she said, even as she stayed in his arms, her only movement being to tighten her hands around him and nuzzle against his neck. He wished he could use his magic to make Time stand still. He was The Great Wizard of Happiness after all; wouldn’t Time listen to him? He laughed, pulled her into a kiss that broke both their hearts. Then he wore his cloak of humour, and helped her up, walking her to the door. There he met her people, laughing with them, putting them at ease, placing her hand in theirs. Letting go.

As she was leaving, she turned to him and said, “Will you come visit me when I am on my deathbed?” He nodded, knowing he would, wishing he didn’t have to.

The Awakening

Woman of substance, sophistication, world-weariness

The woman who knew it all

The multi-tasker, the doer of all things that need to be done

The lover of lists, the lover of checkboxes and checkmarks

The keeper of neat piles in neat stacks in neat boxes

The woman who knew how to manage it all

Who took things in her stride

Not a hair out of place

Then there came a day

Just a day like any other, one of many black figures on the calendar

A little special ‘cos she would go to the beach

A childhood sanctuary, favourite first place on one of her lists

She stood there on the paved walkway by the beach

Watching the boats in the blue yonder

Bobbing like puppets doing a dance

Directed by an invisible hand

A breeze tickled her ear

Wisps of hair came undone from her careful topknot

The breeze gathered strength

Something stirred deep within

She gazed at the sea

Was it calling to her?

The breeze was getting uncomfortable now

And yet in a way she was strangely cosy

Off came her slippers

Tossed aside in an uncharacteristic move

Locks of hair slipping out

She stepped out onto the still-warm sand

Watching the sun begin its descent towards

Its routine yet bewitching dip in the deep

Hesitant steps soon broke into a run

The wind embracing her lifting her hair as she finally let it loose

Now like a benign Medusa she stood

At the foamy edge of the shy waters lapping the shore

The wetness tickling her feet

She saw the high tide build up

And she walked in letting the wave wash over her

She fell back onto the shore drenched

Rivulets of salt running off her

Marking her with sand and bleached remains of seashells

The breeze enveloped her now

A gutsy wind unafraid of her steady gaze

Goosepimples bedraggled hair wet lips

The taste of sand in her mouth

Dirty she was and yet strangely cleansed

A freedom to be herself or even to just be

Delicious in its newness and as comfortable as an old worn blanket

She let herself go

The waves washed over her again and again

The breeze made unruly love to her

Her checkboxes lay unmarked

This woman who suddenly did not know it all

Did not have all the answers

But who had awoken from a long sleep

To soul-quenching, soul-stirring Life

The staid figures on her calendar laughed as they danced

The Spirit of Midnight

Lines of thought
Jumble themselves up in my head
Like woolly yarns of pastel,
Knotty, and tangled, crossing each other
Over and over
Till one knows not beginning nor end.

They slip between my fingers
Like glossy globus pearls
Pitting themselves on the floor,
Scattering everywhere, crushed underfoot.
On all fours, I scramble to gather them in,
My fingers slick with a sweat that seems
Precipitous with the end of reason.

Sleep, the slayer of mundane demons,
Lies forgotten on the crumpled bedspread
Moist with the drool of my meaningless dreams,
Where I still wander in the hope of finding an answer.

I know not what I write
But write I must.
There is a spirit in me that scorches,
Curls tendrils of my hair into feisty disobedience
And demands my obeisance

There's no letting go
Even when the soft threads tighten around me,
Biting into my body to leave dents
And the ravaged pearls take their revenge
In bright spots of crimson red that smudge my fingerprints.

I write, a farewell song,
An elegy, an ode, a hymn,
In desperation to be remembered
Or as a channel for the Unnamed that knows not the limits of Time and Space...
I know not which, but I write.

No more #FOMO, try some #JOMO instead

I often relate Father Time to the person who first came up with this concept of seconds and minutes marching steadily to plot your life. The Hunger Games fans will probably immediately visualise the arena, in Catching Fire (Book 2) which is marked like a clock, with each hourly section housing its own deathly peril. Suzanne Collins did something really smart there (even though I think the first book was far better), in the depiction of Time as a killer, something the Hunger Games contestants need to stay ahead of.

It's something many of us can all relate to, this pressing need to keep up, know more, not miss out. Isn't it ironic that in an age when most of us are living with more conveniences than we could have probably dreamed up, we are more stressed out and burned out than ever before? Time is today more elusive than ever, even when we have all the time-saving and doing-the-job-for-us gizmos our parents and grandparents could have scarcely imagined just a few short decades ago.

#FOMO keeping you on the phone? Take a break!

It would be simplistic to point fingers at smartphones, the widespread use of the Internet or social media, and say, 'hey, there's the culprit!' Puts in mind the quote about pointing a finger at someone, and having three fingers pointing right back at you! Humans are so quick to absolve themselves of responsibility and blame anything else for their lack of progress/happiness/contentment that I often wonder why God chose this species to confer higher understanding on. Today we are no longer using the tools (social media, smartphones, TV, whatever else); the tools are abusing us and we are happy to be their slaves. And we coolly advertise our addiction too, like for instance, #FOMO. Gee, that's so cool! Quite a few celebrity-related accounts I checked out on Instagram have proudly put up posts advertising their #FOMO, Fear of Missing Out for the uninitiated, as a happy-to-be-guilty-of-this trait.
All you are missing out on is life, yours to be specific. I was pretty happy to chance upon #FOMO's nemesis, #JOMO which is the Joy of Missing Out. It's ok if you don't know what your favourite star wore to every cash-rich advertiser's event, it's totally cool even if you are not able to like every status update posted by all 1,178 of your friends and you will still be breathing if you haven't clicked 8 selfies today and updated the world about every single 'fab' thing you've done, like eating, drinking, hanging out, more eating, drinking, hanging out...
Don't bring out the brickbats yet; I'm no killjoy and I am pretty much active on social media. But now that Facebook brings up all your long-forgotten memories, I realise how much time I wasted by posting inane updates on Facebook (examples are Sumi is thinking, ...is wondering what to do, ....is so excited and raring to go!) and, dear Lord, 'farming' (Isn't Farmville around these days? Was it killed by Candy Crush?). Now that I'm finally writing (short stories and getting on with that novel I always wanted to write), I think back and realise I would have been way ahead of the game if I had started back then!

Go find your rainbow!

What I am advocating is moderation, to live this life grateful for the breaths you take, savouring the food you eat, playing with the children, the cat, the sunlight, whatever catches your fancy, finding your passion... actually being in the moment rather than being a hanger-on in someone else's online world. Yes, I am arguing for real life, which, if you try it, will give you a greater high than any kind of virtual reality.  I am not pitching for the eschewing of one for the other but for a kind of wholesome inclusiveness and a balance that keeps your life dynamic, as it is meant to be. Let me leave you with these beautiful words by George du Maurier:

A little work, a little gay

To keep us going—and so good-day!

A little warmth, a little light

Of love’s bestowing—and so, good-night.

A little fun, to match the sorrow

Of each day’s growing—and so, good-morrow!

A little trust that when we die

We reap our sowing—and so—good-bye!