Paragons of virtue- Story of a Mardani

This is the story of a woman of substance. A woman, who rose to defend her identity in the male dominant society that we live in. A woman who had found love in a man, and then chose to kill it ; because there was another love she had to protect. A woman I call MARDANI.

She is a Christian. She loved a Muslim. Religious differences could not keep them apart. In the society that we Indians live in today, marrying your daughters off in another religion is still not readily accepted, she was aware. But she had found love and she wasn't letting go.

And that's my Tale #WOW post #UBC (day 6)

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.Write Over the Weekend inspiration for this time-Your life is going to be made into a novel! Write an introduction for this novel. How will you creatively reflect on your life spent?

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She went across the fields to avoid the straight highways, only to find firing lines longed with people shooting at the cost of their lives, and hills converted to crosses. Like a shadow of the day she reached her place and looked down at the cross with her name inscribed on it. When the firing ends, she thought to herself, there will be somebody who comes to these graves in search of a life. To him, she must do justice. She must guide, enlighten and awaken them through a new world and gift them the spirit of the love and hope. And he, the wanderer, shall give birth to this new world. 

Ayesha's Birthday Eve

Ayesha was going to complete her 11 years of living, that summer. After much discourse, her mother had decided to take her to Darjeeling during her vacations. She was thrilled. The fact that she could celebrate her birthday in a different corner of the world every year was exciting, though secretly she still wished she would have been born during a working month to be able to celebrate with her friends and classmates. She always envied the other girls, they got to wear pretty dresses to school, they were the center of attraction the entire day and the others were all obligingly sweet to them- only in hope for that one extra KitKat. It was the new trend in her school. The birthday baby got 5 extra chocolates to school, which she would give to her 5 special friends in the break time, after the chocolate-distribution-ceremony held in the class. The rule was, if you have been given an extra chocolate by someone, you are well supposed to be giving your special chocolate back to her on your birthday. And well, everybody knew Ayesha's birthday was during summer vacations. The result was that she never really was treated with someone's special chocolate.

Saturday Photohunt

What better theme for Saturday photo-hunt than "skies"?!

I want to say so much about my love for skies, clouds, the vastness but I'm going to shut up and just post two photos that I took last evening. One while I was on my way to home. The other taken when I was home, from my window.

PS- Both are taken from my mobile, I'm sorry for that. Did not have a camera around. The quality is still not THAT bad. Have a look.

The one on the way home. ©SoumyaaVerma

This is the setting sun.

The one from my window, back home. ©SoumyaaVerma

Dazzled #FSF

This week's Five sentence Fiction is based on the prompt- DAZZLES

Wearing a skin-clutching blue dress, she took extra care to justify the occasion.

Sweeping eyelashes over her midnight blue eyes, pink lips, flawless defined curves, edged heels giving her elegance, teaser to the rest.  

While others could not have enough of a glance in her direction, she stood in the doorway, hair swaying by the wind, looking passionately as I arrived. 

Hands on her hips and arching eyebrows she gave me a sheepish smile, ready to receive plaudits.

Did she not know that she could dazzle me by her simplicity alone?

What it’s all about: Five Sentence Fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. Each week Lillie posts one word for inspiration, then anyone wishing to participate will write a five sentence story based on the prompt word.

The sound of him

"See you at dinner tonight" were his last words before he left for hunting that afternoon. 

Now she is fragile and enervated, but only physically. 

Every evening she stumbles her way towards the door and opens it to someone. Maybe she hears him come. Maybe he’ll come.

                                                      

The Shooting Wishes

This week's word for five sentence fiction is - Wishes. Here's my take.

As I blazed across the sky, a family lying on the footpath closed their eyes together and wished for four walls and a roof.

On seeing my streak through her french windows, the little girl from the chateau ran towards the window and wished she had someone who'd hold her hand tightly in their's and pull her closer.

Crowded by fellow dancers and appreciators, the woman wished on me to have her husband's client meeting postponed that evening- he never had the time.

Out of the bar, just in time to catch a glimpse of my fainting trails of flame, the man looked up and wished for a job soon for he was tired of spending the day at JoJo's.

I shot my way across the other stars in the night sky and wished I did not have to see the begging faces every night.

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Wishes. Will we ever have enough of them?

Entering the Acceptance Mode

Sitting at the shack by the sea, I see the coarse black sky. The wind blows against my face and a remembrance of the past hits me like the pangs of penury, but it doesn’t hurt. I am elevated, I feel open and free. As I decide to turn a page of my life, acceptance seeks further inside. I’m falling in love- with myself, again.

The world today encourages constant communication. Living the extroverted life now has newer connotations. These necessities have made it hard for me to keep up because I’m not somebody who attracts the crowd by my mere presence.

Unaware of the gift I had of being an introvert, as a child I wanted to be one of those kids who had the other kids following them. When children my age were hiding and seeking the hidden, I sat in my room carving out personality traits I needed to be able to titillate their interest in me. My family kept telling me that it was okay to go unrecognized in class, that there will be a time when they will all listen to me in anticipation.

“What do they know”, I kept underestimating their experiences.

As I grew up, I secretly aspired to be like one of those plastics in my class (Let’s name her A). With my nerdy hairstyle and a bag full of books I planned to finish in one day, A’s flowy dresses and her straight, silky hair always had me going. I tried to adopt her gregarious personality, failing miserably of course. I couldn’t, rather wasn’t willing to be expansive like her and let loose. I had a clenched fist and an opaque shelter around me, which wasn’t open for people to enter. I cursed myself for being who I was and decided I would die in isolation.

I rejected my qualities of being able to keep calm and be patient in every situation life brought me to. I wanted to create a ruckus like A did, to exaggerate and gain sympathies.

As days passed, my shelter only grew smaller in size, now choking me inside it.

Then came graduation. I stepped out into a superior world- a world where nobody knew A, where I, A, B, C and all of us had to carve a niche for ourselves. This world did not stop at the pomp and show of A. I realized this world was beyond the ramblings of a High School life.

I felt stupid in this world. I gathered my childhood had been wasted behind unnecessary cravings, that being an introvert could be my biggest strength. My shelter expanded and air blew in like the sweet fragrance of the spring.

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 I now understood the quietness in my life. It wasn’t loneliness; it was a nice kind of quite like the sound of a page being turned in a book. Normality that I was trying to achieve all this while was something to get away from.

As an introvert, I am my best friend now. I watch movies and go on dinner dates with myself. I sometimes take trains to places I’ve never been before. I enjoy the party in my head. I’ve shared some of the best moments of life with myself , my inner self.

I’m not anti-social. No. I only need to get away to refill my energy. It assures me, no matter what may-hem is happening around, I can always turn inward.

As I sit by the sea tonight, I steal a little piece of freedom from the water and the wind. 

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Writing for the yeah write weekly. 

                                                                         

Skywatching attraction

You all know how much I love the sky- the clouds, the stretch, the soothing blue color! No? Well now you do. I develop a certain affinity to a place which has a clear, gorgeous view of the sky and I swear I do not know when my hand slides into my pocket/bag and pulls out the capturing instrument.

I have a photo of the sky from wherever I've been on vacations. I must mention here that I plan to travel each and every nook of the world. So this way, when I die and if somebody cares, they could compile all my sky photos and almost have in front of them an image of the entire sky that surrounds the earth.  How cool is that?

How then could I stop myself from posting a Skywatch Friday and a Photo-hunt Saturday prompt, though it now is a Sunday?

Anyway, here it is.

That's the sky 7kms from where I live, in Vadodara.

Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma

This one is taken from my phone, while travelling on the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway.

Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma

This one is from Diu, one fine summer morning.

Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma

The next is the sky on the Mumbai-Pune highway. I was on my way to Mahabaleshwar.

Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma

There are many many more I want to add here, but I'm sure that's not what the prompt setters expected me to do. The theme for PhotoHunt Saturday was Azure.

The sky is something that amazes me everytime I look up. I literally mean EVERYTIME.

If you have any photos of the sky from your land, do let me know through the comments section below. I'd love to see the pictures!

How I battled depression.

While going through my drafts I found this post and I really wanted to share it with you people. I completed it and tada-daa, here's how I fought depression. 

NOTE: That's not really how I fought depression. More like how I will fight depression when I get depressed. That's really why I had saved the post in my drafts, but I can't wait to get depressed to post this now.

So i was sad. Very sad. I sat at the window in my room for minutes (hours is too long for me to sit idle at one place, even in depression). Observing people, cursing the happy faces. 

Every morning I woke up and wished myself a sad morning. Every night was a sad night. 

I got immune to this feeling. I was happily sad until someone asked me- Why are you sad. Now this depressed me! It's depressing to feel sad for no reason. People generally have a justifiable reason to be sad, but not me. This became a good enough reason, but not for long. 

I couldn't find solace in anything. Mummy ordered Pizzas! Nah. I topped the class test! Nah. My favorite writer wrote back to me! Nah. I kept crying and cried myself to sleep every night. Only for the sake of crying. I even updated my Whatsapp status to "I am sad". How sadder can it get?!

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I acted like the protagonist in sad movies. 

"Oh God, why me? Why did you do this to me??"

But it didn't quite fit well if there was no actual reason of the protagonist's sadness. 

To top it, the maid saw me acting and chuckled. I know she will go and tell the neighbors. Crap!

I played loud sad songs on my speakers. Well then brother came in and took away the speakers. This could be the reason! 

"I'm sad because I wasn't allowed to play loud, ear-wrecking, sad songs for no reason".

I could do better!

When I didn't find a reason for this feeling, I grew tired of it. I wanted to be happy now.

I tried to get myself out of being sad. 

"Hey you. You should not be sad."

That didn't help. 

I tried to feel shame as a sort of motivation.

"You are depressed? Do you even know what that is? Do you know how it feels when you don't have food to eat after a tiring day of manual work? Or when your boss sexually exploits you? The worst thing that happened to you is the Pizza bar was closed."

"Did you dream on becoming a sad person when you grew up? Well you're doing a pretty good job babyy."

This only gave me a feeling of self hatred and I was still sad.

I reverted to abusing.

"Hey you freaking ugly lobster out there. STOP CRYING FOR NO REASON. Who even does that?" 

"I hate you for ruining my limited days of survival!" 

"You're so chubby and you could never get a hubby! So better stop crying"

Nothing could help. I guess they'll call me 'the depressed soul' when I die. I kept sinking in my own unknown sorrows until I felt like a machine.

Friends and Family started helping. 

"Go out with people. You'll feel better." Or end up making them sad as well? No thank you.

"Let's go to the water-park you water baby!"  I'm depressed, I'm not a kid, you buffoon. 

"I baked cake for you. See."  I could go to a cake shop to see. Can i eat now?

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None of these was the solution to my undiscovered problem. I felt stupid. Dull. Goofy.

I had to get out of this depressing feeling anyhow! That's when I decided I would force myself to laugh at everything. At first I thought it wasn't going to work after all but well, nothing else did too.

Brother came up singing to himself- "So it's a bitter sweet symphony this liiiiiiiiiiiiife".

I burst out laughing through his weird looks. 

Friend called- "Do you have the constitution notes ma'am gave?"

I laughed again and through the phone I could almost see his him squinting.

On my way to college I saw a person driving and I laughed at him too. Thank God I was driving faster.

In college, someone started to speak- " I don't know why..." I interrupted by laughing. Even I didn't know why. 

                 

2 days went by this way. By the third, people were so tired of me that they forced a laugh when they looked at me before I could laugh. I found that funny. RANDOM PEOPLE FORCING LAUGHTER IS THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE WORLD! 

The element of laughter had allowed the laughter to circle back on itself! You go girl!

M to D- The Price of your dreams

The daughter lay on the bed facing her pillow, deep in the vividness of her thoughts.
Her mother asked, " What is that you dream about?"

"Dream? I'm trying not to dream. There's always a price you have to pay for your dreams." She mumbled from inside the pillow.

"Aren't you paying a price right now, for not dreaming?"
She sat up this time.

Damn it, Bon Jovi!

It's always a pleasure to write for Word Tribe's prompts. This week's prompt was " if s/he knew then whats/he knew now". This is my take on the prompt. Do let me know what you think of it in the comments section below.

He read the lyrics again,

"She says we've got to hold on to what we've got 
'Cause it doesn't make a difference 
If we make it or not 
We've got each other and that's a lot 
For love - we'll give it a shot "

A wonted symbiotic relation

He lost his parents before he could retain any memory and created a void in his heart which he filled with anger against the world.

Being punished by his teacher that day, for he wasn't able to identify alphabets, he banged the door open and started throwing the neat bolster into disarray.

Infusion of those uncontrollable emotions

He was the same. He had always been this way. Maybe I was only too busy loving him, to notice anything!

Last evening, again, we could not talk properly, as was our routine during the early days. He did not seem to mark this, I loved him enough not to mention it.

My room was haunted. But I'm stronger than a spook!

So, this gloomy winter night I was engrossed in studying, studying my nails, when I heard a clanking sound from the other room. At first I didn't pay heed, my first guess was my mom. But it was well past 12 o'clock and she usually isn't much of an owl. I continued studying. Then it came again, and then again and the next time I sat up straight.