River Song

The boy sang without restraint, his free unadulterated voice audible even in the midst of the constant humming of the motor boat. What a voice it was,powerful  melodious and hypnotising. The boat swayed a bit,unnoticed by everyone.The River was  stirring.
Do you know,dear boy,that the River can hear you? 
I call you a boy, because you are still a child in my eyes. You managed to capture my attention on this hot autumn afternoon while Nature was in a sweet, lazy slumber . how could i not awaken, dear boy? You are ,afterall, a part of the same Nature. And you are singing to me unawares. You are singing a River Song. I couldnt stay away.
I see you, your companions,and take note of the effect your song has not only on me, but those who surround you. The locals dont know your language, but they still listen to you in awe. Your friends, it seems to me, enjoy your melodious voice even as it goes up an octave before coming down to the regular pitch. You are young, but your voice tells me you have suffered hardships,and  also overcome them. It makes me proud,inspite of the fact that i do not know you.
I have seen enough of your people in my everflowing lifetime to know your stories with a single look. But this afternoon, i can only see the stories that your song brings forward in their minds.
Check-Shirt Girl ,with a half smile on her face , is taking a walk down memory lane, thinking of her mother and how she once sang the same River song to another River years ago.
Blue Shirt Boy is still trying to process your lyrics and maybe thinking a teensy bit about the little brother back home.
Oversized Hat Girl is already miles away,thinking of a different voice,accompanied by the memory of a certain pair of beautiful dark eyes and their infinite depths.
Black Tshirt Boy is feeling utterly peaceful, and to some extent sleepy in a good way, thinking of your song as a very beautiful lullaby. He couldnt remember the last time he felt this much peace in his hectic crazy life.
Maroon Shirt girl is so overwhelmed with emotion that love longing pain joy relief happiness everything jumbled up together is indistinctly flitting through her eyes. She fleetingly glances at her companion,a soft smile gracing her features. I dont know if she is sniffing because of cold.
Black and White Shirt Girl's eyes are getting unfocused and  glassy as she is thinking of all of you and how you all came to be where you now are. Like me ,she hears the twinge of pain in your vocals, but is very hopeful about the future.
Pink Top Girl has Love ,Pride and Understanding written all over. She is brimming with Happiness and Contentment. She truly sees you.
And you, little one , singing to me , are feeling blessed and emotional. and infinite. Just like me.
Your song is over, but the spell doesnt break. Nature will remember it this way.

Your song may be over, but it will live with the River.

Know this,The River doesnt forget.

Years later I may forget your face, but i wil not forget your tribute to me. Your River Song.

Mud Stuck

They encountered wet mud after walking for about an hour. It took up the entire width of the forest path.the guides told them to carefully tiptoe around the edges and cross over. The 1st two people took their time and reached dry ground without any incident. Impatient,the 4th in line,Remy, decided that she'll just tiptoe over the mud... it didnt look that wet. Surely it would hold her for three seconds?
She was never so mistaken in her life.
Without warning she stepped on the mud,and she swore she sank four inches deep on impact. Her entire team felll silent and she started to panic. Within seconds her brilliant white sneakers sank deep in the mud. She tried lifting her foot but she was stuck. She was never more embarrased.
While Remy's mind went blank, she failed to notice the boys trying to talk to her. She snapped back into reality,processed half of what she heard, followed instructions and in no time she was pulled to dry ground by numerous pairs of helping hands.
After heaving a sigh of relief,she looked down at her shoes and exclaimed "O my God! how am i going to wash this off?" Then she started giggling hysterically. Her friends looked at her weird, she knew it was neither the time nor the place,but she visualised her brother's thunderstruck expression after beholding the beautiful shoes and could'nt help but laugh. "Well",she thought,as the walk resumed,"now i will be able to take back home a bit of mangrove soil with me. "

                                           *******

Rosie looked at the mud ahead. Beside her,Remy had  already become tensed. She let Remy go first. This time also her shoes sank deep,but she crossed the wet mud patch without getting stuck or falling. Rosie tested the ground,and took a tentative step forward. People who had crossed over earlier encouraged her to move forward carefully. Her  dear annoying friend Alice at the end of the line was already complaining about holding up the line. Two steps she took fine,after the third step she realised that her foot had moved forward but her shoe was left behind in the mud. She realised it a few seconds later than her friends,and by that time her barefoot was already covered in sticky smelly mud. She let out a bark of laughter ,so strange this situation was. Her friends started teasing her and encouraging her at the same time.It took her a while to put back her dirty foot back into her shoe. She held onto the outstretched hands and made it to the safe  solid ground. Now the situation wasnt so funny anymore. But she laughed inwardly,thinking how she must have looked, moving forward with a shoe missing.she turned just in time to see Alice stumbling but managing to break her fall by supporting herself on her left hand. She looked up to see Rosie grinning at her.she grinned back and held up her left hand,covered with a deep layer of mud. "High five?" She asked,approaching Rosie. Rosie scooted away to safety and continued being mock threatened by Alice and her muddy hand. They looked at each other's respctive mud problems and burst out laughing.

Warmth

It took him 7 days of travelling in the boat to experience sea sickness and he was least expecting it. The underbelly of the boat was cold and suffocating.so like most days he sat on the deck with his friends and stared at the vast expanse of the sea . but today his eyes were  unfocussed,looking at nothing. He could feel his friends' fleeting stares in his direction. Everything seemed washed out, less colourful-blame the blazing sun! It actually hurt his eyes.the same 5 people sat with him today,yet 5 seemed too less in his eyes.  Mind addled with tiredness,he didnt give much thought to that feeling of incompleteness. Another few days under the sun on the boat,and he would surely lose his mind.
At noon, his best friend found him lying against the rucksacks piled on the deck,eyes closed.cap lowered to shield his eyes.. in no time the girls on the deck, Sona and Erilyn started fusing over him..he was too tired to acknowledge even this. By nature,he hated asking for help. Surely the nausea would soon pass!
Erilyn took one look at his face, gave him the required medicine,an quietly left the deck. He welomed her absence. The well meaning  girl was a bundle of energy which he couldnt deal with right at that time. And Sona wasnt a close friend. Surely he couldnt tell her he was feeling cold under the sun! She would kick start her Mother Hen duties like she always did. He closed his eyes again.
He didnt know how long his peace lasted. He could hear Erilyn's voice rising.And then he  felt it.
His eyes we still closed but he knew she was there.  He peeked from under his eyelids,and there she was, almost crawling up on the deck silently so as to not disturb him.he saw the way she looked his way, half worried,half relieved. Sona  must have seen it too,for she immediately patted her head and cleared the deck.Even after Sona and Erilyn moved away,She kept her distance ,like usual. He didnt mind. Too many prying eyes.
He kept looking at her,pretending to be asleep.She was unaware she was being watched. Her presence was enough for him. He swore everything wasnt so washed out and dull. And he wasnt that cold anymore. The medicine didnt do that now,did it?
Even from a distance ,Light was what she projected
and Warmth was what she provided.

FoOd -_-

As she waited for the bus, her stomach grumbled. in order to ignore the pangs of hunger, she turned up the volume of her mp3 player. she smiled,eyes unfocussed as one of her favourite instrumental music came up on the music shuffle, "The Reichenbach Ballad"  .
on the opposite end, she saw her girlfriends indulging in potato chips. she quickly turned her head, reminding herself Olestra was bad for health. but still...
Damned bus, never on time!
she needed to forget about her protesting stomach, and all the ill-timed gastric hormone secretions. She needed a slightly faster beat of music. keeping in line with her BBC Sherlock Music appreciation, she scrolled down her playlist and played the music piece titled "Lazarus" . it sort of helped. that music piece only reminded her of Adrenaline. pure adrenaline. she looked at her watch. 20 minutes till 1 p.m.
20 minutes till it would be 5 hours since breakfast
20 minutes more and then she could eat. Sugar free Biscuits.
that thought did not cheer her up one bit. whats taking the bus so long? 

Maybe she needs yo motivate herself once more by Watching/reading Hunger Games. 

15 minutes. 

Control was necessary. She didnt want another semester going by with her brother subtly teasing her about her desperate dieting attempt.

12 minutes.

The bus wasn't there and she was hungry to the point of madness. She had had enough. 

10 minutes. She marched to the nearest Kathleen outlet just 10 yards away and helped herself to a hot dog.  After she took the 1st bite did she  realise what she had done. she froze mid bite.

5 minutes. 

 She decided it was time for that "rebellious" discussion with her mother. She needed to understand that her daughter unlike her,couldn't sustain or function properly by eating two and a half meals everyday. 

She didn't care she cheated today. The Peppy number "Stag Night" from Season 3 soundtrack seemed to agree with her thought process. 

The bus still hadn't arrived. 

The Colour of Pain

People often associate pain with either of the two colours-black and white.
"the pain hit, and everything went black."  and "searing , white pain" are two common examples that we come across in many writings. why is it always that pain is given such a monochromatic palette, whereas love and jealousy are given the colours red and green? pain is every bit a burst of colours as any other emotion or feeling.

There is no need to classify the types of pain to determine their true colours.

Pain demands to be felt, as John Green famously quoted in one of his books. it doesn't matter if it is physical pain or emotional.

That one time when Rayna was a just a little girl,she got slapped by her stepmother for returning home muddy and soaking. to her, pain  became associated with brown -a harsh,hard,unfeeling colour in her opinion. pain remained brown to her all through her lifetime of bruises,cuts,misunderstandings,heartbreaks and fights.


Sarika,being a teenager, was very sensitive to people's comments about her boring lifestyle and even boring body language. nobody would understand her views,which really weren't that boring. if only  her classmates stopped trying to be cool all the time. they poked her,rebuked her, teased her, and she withdrew further into her protective invisible shell. the emotional pain she was in  existed due to her being "boring". she felt grey pain seeping into her mind and body, emotionally exhausting her. they saw her in pain, and did nothing.because to them, even in pain, she was grey,dull, boring.


Scott stared at the orange-red clay,head bowed down. he missed every single backhand shot,because his wrist was still not healed. yet he needed to be fit within the next three days,else the school team would crash out of the championship. he felt helpless,tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. his training partner Andy had a resigned , sad look in his face. Scott wouldn't give up. he tried hitting the ball right again and again when suddenly something in his right wrist snapped and he drowned in a burst of saffron,tangerine,orange before the pain overwhelmed him completely,driving out everything but the orange tinge from his eyes. pain, he had thought, was black. few seconds before he lost consciousness,he knew for sure that his personal brand of pain came in the colour orange.


he humiliated her, she slapped him. both were in pain, yet she knew that the pain was different. hers was emotional, and he was just grumbling about his perfect cheekbones getting assaulted like that. she blinked back a few tears. she was hurting. in this very inappropriate time,she thought about the film Black Swan's protagonist, and how her pain had been white,blinding white. but she didn't feel that sort of pain. she literally saw red. red was supposed to be the colour of love,but she reminded herself that it was also the colour of blood. and blood she'll have. she had had enough of him treating her like a doormat. the regret and sadness would come later. she focused on the pain for the moment and removed the ruby engagement ring from her fourth finger. she then proceeded to thrust the finger in his hand.she didn't wait to listen to his mumbled apologies. she was still seeing red. she'd punch the next person who told her red was the colour of love. how wrong people are! red , intense,deep red was the colour of rage, the colour of her pain.


Nathaniel missed her everyday. every waking moment. her loss affected him deeply. the pain engulfed him, and he let it. there was little else to do. he often thought of her wonderful green eyes. pools of ever changing green. his world revolved around those green orbs. and now that was taken away from him, leaving him in the darkness of his green hued nightmares and green tinted pain..


Anita examined the bruises on her knuckles. Rita lightly poked the edges of the blue  bruises,making Anita wince. she thanked her for protecting her by punching her molester. Anita just shook her head. they both knew the fight was long from being over. that creep would catch them on the road again. but the next time they would both be prepared for it. as Anita clenched and unclenched her fist,
she felt motivated by the pain. next time,
she declared, the bastard would be taught thoroughly how blue pain can actually be.

Summit

Somebody had once told me that one should'nt climb a mountain and stand on the  summit.because once you reach the summit, you have to go down.

And no one likes to come down from the summit.

So the logical solution is to stay some distance away from the summit and view it from afar. Admire it from the distance.

Because that summit is just an illusion we cant seem to get our head around.

Ask anyone who has been on the metamorphical summit about how it actually feels. They wont say much, except for giving a smug or shy smile.. Most summit occupants have either of the following features: confidence,modesty or arrogance.
But
Is the summit as secure as we think it is?

People tend to forget that the summit is  just a tip , ensuring that there isnt enough space for too many people to get a secure footing on.

Which means....
One wrong shift in your footing, and down you go.

And i have seen what happens to people when they lose their footing.

I have seen Natasha slapping the boy who took her position in the summit.

I have heard my little sister Ana who came second in class howl in anguish all night.

I have seen Portia being triggered to slice her left wrist hours after the results came out.

I have seen Anil smuggling chits to the examination hall, so that he could get top marks in his exams and regain his footing on the summit.

And i have also seen him getting caught in the act.

Now as i sit and ponder over the summit and its meaning and its worth, i sneak a peak at my best friend who's on her third glass of Antiquity Blue, trying to forget her loss of the summit position.

I am a silent spectator. Nothing i say or do scratches the layer of indifference she has wrapped up herself in since we saw the semester examination scoresheet.

It was her reaction to the slip from the top position which lead me to write this down.

That lovely spot on the summit actually comes with a price. You lose yourself, you lose your defining characteristics, you lose your confidence,and sometimes,your sanity.

So what is the point in participating in the mad chase of  trying to get to the top , only to come hurtling down in disgrace?There are too few of us who can maintain their footing.

As i struggle to put a passed out,sweaty,unhappy girl into bed, i decide i'd rather be miles away from the summit,keeping my distance,no longer in awe of the illusive security of the peak spot.

Axis Tilts

The girls were sitting on the grass,laughing their hearts out.it was a sight to behold.the lone boy among the group of hysterical girls sat clueless,with a tiny smile playing on his lips.the tallest and the most imposing among the girls was actually rolling on the grass, face full of mirth. Two others were leaning on to each other,gasping for breath. another had hidden her face in the boy's jacket... 

 the boy viewed the spectacle unfolding around him. he saw pure joy in every face. he knew he would be teased if he started laughing too,(for he had no idea what had set off the girls in the first place..)but he could barely hold back his laughter. he didn't have much laughter in his life before.

before.

what was before this?

was there even a "before"?

because that "before" seemed millions of light years away now.

there is always a "before" and "after" in everyone's life.. a life changing event tilts the axis of one's life. just like Christ's birth forever divided the historical timeline into B.C and A.D, the birth of something new in the journey of life forever demarcates the timeline of life into a before and after.

The boy had a perfect "before" life. Perfect home, perfect schooling, loveliest parents in the world, plenty of cousins, dozens of playmates, perfect behavior, perfect grades. Life was beautiful. (Or not?)

Because,  if you asked him if he was happy, he’d probably take time to answer that.

Then the great depression came like a thunderbolt out of nowhere. But the boy was strong, he kept quiet. Surely people would think he was mad if he told them he was depressed, that too for no apparent reason. so he remained silent. no one noticed anything amiss.

Then came the beginning of "after".

For him, the axis tilting event was something as mundane as "attending a college". 

one may wonder, what was so special about college? Some people actually dread going to college!!
Not that he had an effortless start to his college life. It had bumps and hiccups too, just like the others. But the environment and the people-both were different. He would remember the first semester of his college life as the most magical couple of weeks. He found love, he became friends with his classmates, this time for real. He finally got the taste of strong companionship. After years, he knew, he was actually happy. His friends treated him with love and affection, something that he had no idea of back in the school days.

But the ugly monster had to raise its head right in the middle of his continuing state of happiness. Unknown fears gripped him, rendering him paralyzed and breathless with fear. He had no known words to describe what the depression monster was doing to him.

Again he remained silent.

But the monster wouldn't stay quiet; it started a full scale rebellion inside his head.

The boy could finally take no more. He succumbed.

Little did  the boy know what his friends and family would do for him.

yes he got help.

yes, his parents gave their all for his betterment.

yes his friends called him twice a day to chat him up and make him forget about his demons.

yes, his love became his true guardian angel.

most  important of all, they didn't give up on him.

the monster went crazy.

the monster got alarmed. it wouldn't go so fast. but what match was it against an army of love and compassion?

the monster bothered him less ever since. it didn't depart fully, but it was manageable for him.the boy saw better days after  that.

now as  he looked at the crazed out girls, he wondered how lucky he was to be a part of this  madness.

 to him, they were family too.

a crooked ,uncertain smile broke across his face.

"এই এই না বুঝে হাসছিস যে?"

"তোদের  দেখে  হাসি পেল তাই হাসছি ! " 

"কি যাতা !"

his love rested her head on his shoulder. his sister-the tall one- poked him good-naturally. all was well and fine.

he wouldn't give up this moments of random craziness for anything.

smugly,he made a mental note,

"take that, ugly monster!"