captivated

i despise the thing between your lips but you say it helps you take the edge off, though it burns your lungs and clouds your mind yet i’m distracted by your throaty laugh and those liquid gold words that escape your smooth mouth. and when darkness cloaks the sky, phone warms up my ear like a fire that burns so bright, you pour out your demons and they swirl and swirl in my mind. later at night i toss and turn in my sleep. i swear those demons got me. and then i wonder how you carry their weight and i wonder how you slay the ghosts of your past. in that moment, i admire you and i admire you a lot because i’m fascinated how you’ve come so far. yet every time there is glow in your eyes as you look forward to the world. the world i’ve grown so tired of. and my feeling doesn’t pass you by. sometimes you even point out, how you’ve never seen anyone more negative than me. and i tell you slowly that some people are just made this way. you try to argue but you don’t because you know how stubborn i am anyway. but every time you point out, i try to be a little more positive towards life, but that just isn’t my cup of tea and i give up way too soon. yet you don’t say anything. you just let me be. and even hear all the negative things i have to say. so instead of asking me to be optimistic you put in positive ideas in my ears which i’m sure are just bounced off by my mind and yet you try. sometimes you even just laugh them off. did i tell how much i like your laugh? much more than i like your smile. only that one smile of yours that comes naturally. but you hardly ever smile that way. maybe because it takes a lot of effort to actually be happy when a lot of things are just weighing you down. i guess because you don’t answer my question why you don’t smile that way. rather you change the topic to my smile. and you compliment in ways i’ve never even known before. do you do it on purpose or am i really starting to like something about myself? i wish you knew the enormity of the change you’ve done to me. but i don’t tell you and i wonder if you’ll ever know. also sometimes, i wish a lot more than that. i wish i could tell you things, show you my demons and unveil my wounds. but i just don’t have the strength anymore. so i just listen to yours. because yours alone are magnanimous enough for you and i wouldn’t want to burden you more. but that’s what i tell myself. convince myself. because i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to do that. i keep all the darkness to myself. maybe that’s what i’m supposed to do anyway.

---

lower case letters in this post. terribly sorry if lower case irritates you. but i just love it and i think lower case makes it way more vulnerable.

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E Y E S – Musings of a MedStudent.

I trudged the corridors of the Operation Theatre in my flip flops donning the standard uniform, a blue gown complemented with my hair tucked inside the scrub cab and my face hidden behind the mask, as I searched for a cataract surgery. It was my very first day at the OT in Eye Hospital and everywhere I looked were just strange faces of people who provided little to no solace. I was just a fourth semester undergrad student whom those doctors wouldn’t pay heed. They had more important students to attend to. The students of higher semester, students of postgrad, students of speciality. Plus, there was this impression they had that fourth semester students were too young and reckless to understand their seriousness. That we were free birds flying anywhere and everywhere.  It wasn’t their mistake. Rather it was our own undoing. Hardly any fourth semester student was serious about Peripheral postings. Or rather not many were serious about any posting in fact, be it General Medicine or Surgery or ENT or even Opthal.

My friends and I, were kind of lost. Although there were so many people in the OT unit, we were too afraid to talk to any one because we were just ‘fourth sem students’ or maybe we weren’t really the bold ones. I finally mustered some courage and asked the cleaner whether there was any cataract surgery and he replied that no, there wasn’t any. Although we did come to know later that plenty of cataract surgeries were performed that day. But why did the cleaner say so? It was because he was plainly being rude, just for the sake of it. There were all kinds of people at hospital but I would always find people who would usually be rude to the young people, only because the young had no other option but to endure their rudeness. Well, on the sunny side, it does make us, the young people very tolerable. After much stumbling, I came across a soft spoken doctor and she guided us towards the cataract surgery.

 

Finally! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Oh, eyes. Eyes are such monumental parts of our body. Not only do these tiny globes behold the world and play an enormous sensory function biologically but also they occupy a significant place in literature. Very often they have been a muse for the poets. Such majestic words are written about the eyes and they have been extensively described by the writers in various ways depicting a plethora of emotions. As they say, eyes are the window to our souls. There is something unexplainably imposing about looking directly in the eye of a person. And if I start to put down all the thoughts about eyes that are bursting in my mind right now, I could write on and on, but I guess you get the idea. How important eyes are.

 

And here he was, the surgeon, sitting calmly on a stool in front of the patient probing into his eyes with the various instruments. The cool air from the air condition gushed through the room making it more chilly for me and elevating my anxiousness up a notch. A couple of us students, gathered around him and watched him perform the surgery delicately and swiftly. He was a very skillful surgeon. I felt as if I was watching art. He gave us a basic idea about the steps of surgery but what made him more awesome was the way he made it sound so interesting and caught our attentions by cracking jokes. I remember how he compared removing the nucleus of the lens to pouring a dosa.  And there were many other funny comparisons which were fun to listen to and made those moments of surgery unforgettable. He cracked jokes not only with us, but also the patient. Oh yes, the patient is given local anesthesia so, he can talk. He calmed the nerves of the patient, kept us amused and all the while briskly correcting the defect in the eye. There is some weird magic in Operation theatres. Specially when its a low risk surgery and the mood is jovial. Also, there is something so charming about a surgeon’s attitude. And the best part was, when he got to tell the patient that it all went well and at that moment there’s this happiness on patient’s face. A small magical beautiful thing to witness. Maybe even more magical to experience. Those seven to ten minutes were the best part of my day. The doctor was way too awesome. He not only taught us the subject but also gave us tips. Our level tips, for undergrad students. He told us how he loved to perform dissection on frogs when he was a mere seventh Standard student. He would do it on her sister’s behalf who would be in eleventh. And very solemnly he explained us, how you should enjoy the surgery, find rush in doing it and absolutely fall in love with it, then only you could become a good surgeon. Maybe it does come naturally. It’s like art. At least that’s what I think. But there is some pure bliss in those operation theatres that I can never explain exactly or I can never compare it to anything. Just enchanting.

—

Happy April you awesome people!

 

 

Bikes – A short story.

Stacy looked out of the glass walls as she sat in the coffee shop with her friend Jenny,  who was stumbling her way to complete the assignment which was due the next day. Stacy looked out of the glass but she was not actually looking, it was as if her eyes were seeing the images but the mind was not processing them. For, her mind was consumed by the very thought of something special. A pretty someone, to be precise. She couldn’t help but smile as he crossed her mind over and over.

“. . . . . . . so is x = 20 or x = -10”, asked Jenny as she incorrigibly scribbled the assignment that Stacy had refused to let her copy but sat with her here in the coffee shop itself for any help.

“Hmm. . “, Stacy looked at Jenny confused with her eyes wide like saucer.

She was sure that she had just heard and understood Jenny saying something but instantly forgot what that was.As Jenny repeated the question, she came back to her senses and helped her through.

She looked at her coffee, which she was supposed to have drank ten minutes ago. The coffee stood there cold and all Stacy was left to think was how Zach had always asked her to drink coffee with him.

It amazed Stacy at how the thoughts of him always plagued her mind. It was like a chronic thing, it returned no sooner had it left and it would shake her up.

Human mind is an utter mess, she thought. By now, her mind had swirled through everything else and stopped on the way he looked as he rode his bike. Bikes. That were his favourite thing. She reminisced how he stooped forward as he raced.

R

 

A

 

C

 

E

 

D

Thats what her heart did when she saw him on a bike. It raced and beat and palpitated.

He loved bikes.
And she loved that he loved bikes, even though she had never given bikes a second thought before she met him.
Now, she loved that he loved bikes.

Because.

Because, she loved to see the zeal in his eyes as he spoke about them. She loved how silent he could be until someone would bring up the topic of bikes. She loved how he could talk on and on about them.

More than anything else, she loved to see him smile.

“You should’ve drank your coffee, Stacy”, Jenny interrupted her chasm of thoughts monopolised by a certain someone.

” Yeah, I should have”, mumbled Stacy as she got up to get another coffee. There was still some time left for Jenny to complete her assignment.

As Stacy waited in the line, she wondered if it was a co-incidence that he always asked her to drink coffee with him. Would he have known that coffee was the absolute favourite thing in the world to her?

Only if he knew, she smiled.

Smiled. And as she smiled, she marvelled how any thought about him would instantly curve her lips upward.

“Excuse me, Madam”, the cashier frowned at her, “you’ve been standing here for a while. Would you like to order anything? ”

Stacy was embarrassed and baffled. She quietly placed the order and walked back with her coffee.

HIM.
Whenever she thought of him, she lost the track of time. In reality, she was surrounded by lot of people but she felt as if she was the only person in the room and he was the only person in her mind.

She sat back on her seat.

“Stop thinking about him now, will you? ” Jenny smirked at her.

” About who?” asked Stacy, trying to suppress her smile as flashes of him automatically played in her mind.

And.
A tinge of electricity jolted through her brain, right to her heart. And, her heart thumped faster. Blood gushed through her ventricles. Streamed through her arteries, up through the carotid and scattered in her cheeks making them rosy. And, thats how she blushed, at the mere thought of him.

And, Stacy was not someone who blushed easily.

“You know who I am talking about”, Jenny was serious now and Stacy knew why. Jenny was looking out for Stacy and she appreciated that.

Zach had left town and gone out to college. And Stacy. Stacy had one more year of schooling and God knew which college she’d be selected in.

Her heart sank. Stacy hadn’t realised the reality but now, he was gone. And Stacy didn’t even give him a chance. Heck, she didn’t even drink coffee with him.

———

I know I sound so cheesy here 😛

Well, I wrote this story like an year ago and it was just lying around so I thought why not post it. I wouldn’t write the same way now. Also, I know this needs major editing but I wanted to keep it that way to remember how my writing used to be. I should’ve written up something but I didn’t and rather posted this. Because I’m too lazy to write some new stuff. Also, there’s a lot going on in life anyway. I need to learn how to manage to do everything despite all the ups and downs in life.
But how was it? Was it any good? 

 

 

Happy Birthday!

Dear Best friend,

As I let my mind wander down the memory lane, I revisit almost every significant memory in our friendship all these days but one memory shines vivid. The first time we spoke. Or rather had an actual conversation. That november night. Yes, you’d argue that the first time we spoke was before that, but that was just a formal casual talk regarding something professional and we hadn’t even introduced ourselves. But I knew who you were and you knew who I was. And when I say that I’m very thankful that you took the initiative for an actual conversation, you’d never comprehend how much I mean it. Because, if not for you, I never would have initiated it. You know me, I hardly ever initiate friendships by myself. Always waiting for the other person to take it forward. But all I needed was a push, and from then on, our friendship flowed effortlessly.

 Our very first conversation was just so magical. It is always so exhilarating to discover a new person. To get to know them layer by layer. But the sad part is, the excitement dies down as days go by. We knew this. You even told me that after a couple of days, all this won’t be as exciting. That our similarities and disparities won’t be astonishing anymore. That it will all fade away as time flew by. I argued that it wouldn’t be the case for us. But did my argument stand to be correct? I’m afraid not so.

Time took its toll. And it would always disappoint me to know that we will never be as close as we were in the beginning of our friendship or all of it won’t be as overwhelming as it initially was. No matter, how much we try we will have to accept the fact that we both have changed a lot as clock ticked by. Perhaps, I have changed a lot, much more than you. So maybe when you blame me, that I’ve changed a lot and that our friendship can’t be the same because of me, then maybe I do take the blame. But I never meant to. And you should know that, I can never go back to the person I once was, when you first met me.

It was The Alchemist. Wasn’t it? Its just a rhetorical question. Of course I do remember that book. You asked me to read that book, the first time we spoke, because you said you loved it. I had tried reading that book before but gave up by page number three. But once you recommended it to me, I wanted to read it just for the sake of understanding what kind of book you liked. Just for the sake of knowing you. And I totally fell in love with it. That book is the kind of a life changing book and I was so happy that I met a person who’d suggest such books. You always had that charm. You still do. Of knowing what to talk to a person and when to. It always amazed me how you would be so charming effortlessly.

If I recollect all the sighs we captured in songs or the memories of movies or reminisce all pictures, I would never be able to fit them all in words. But those moments were one of a kind. And so many days later, here we are, still friends, though not that close. We talk but rarely, although we still have that spark of awesomeness in our conversations. And no matter what, how less we may talk or how much distance might seem between us, know that you will always be my best friend. And I know that we aren’t about all that sentimental stuff and the only reason I’ve written all this is because today is your Birthday. Or else you know, how lazy I am. But I meant each and every word. And you are and will always be a very important person to me. No matter where we stand in each others life as time goes by.

Happy Birthday Best Friend!

When it burns.

The smoke swirled in beautiful patterns around the book.  It travelled nonchalantly in the air weaving its own trail. Exactly how I imagine pollution to do its wonders. The air around me turned grayish, loosing its freshness. It hurt to look. Literally and metaphorically. My eyes stinged yet I remained close watching it burn. Because the flame that engulfed the corners was beautiful to look at. It pleased me how it slithered from one place to another. Ruining everything as it passed by.  My throat burned and my nose couldn’t tolerate the smell. My respiratory system rebounded into coughs and my eyes closed unconsciously. I wasn’t even able to open them. I stepped back for a while and regained some normalcy. As soon as I felt better, I went back. Closer to the book. Observing the ashes that had long formed as they piled into dust. Gazing into anonymity. Staring until my eyes couldn’t take it and tears started trailing through my eyes and my nose and throat burned like hell. I had to get away. I could no longer watch it burn. I had to walk away and leave it.

But I really did wanted to watch it burn completely. Until every inch of it turned to ashes. I wanted to watch it all turn to nothingness, like it never even existed at all.

——

Sometimes, you need to burn the book and move on. No matter how painful it is. 

I have been so MIA on this blog. I’m trying my best to get back to it. To this blogging thing. Because, there’s some weird magic here at WordPress that makes you happy in a way nothing else can. I call it WordPress happy. It is the happy feeling I get when I read an awesome post on WordPress. And then sometimes, when I feel sudden elation at some times in life, I call that happy feeling WordPress happy too. What do you think of it? 😀

A moment of Epiphany

Sometimes

 we’ll never be able to decipher

the meaning of somethings in life

they always seem strange

 when we think about them

and we keep on thinking about them

but we never get it

But someday when we are wallowing

in our abyss

in dark times

there is a sudden flash of  memory in front of our eyes

and we realise that a certain thing might have happened

 for this particular reason

and

in that moment

knowing the reason

will be everything

~ a.m.

Melancholy

Whenever I think of him,

I think of his soul.

The way he thought , it was like he was from some other dimension.

Like a very very old soul that has been long observing the world and smiling.

Smiling at the foolishness of humans.

His eyes were so kind. As if he knew all the hurt you’ve gone through

And the way he answered your questions. It was mind boggling

You always got the answer you deserved

I can never understand, how a teenager could have been so mellow

All I hoped that the world wouldn’t crush such a beautiful soul.