Life in the Metro

I sat across from her on the yellow line of the Delhi metro. I was on my way to my workplace in the heart of the largest vegetable market in the city. It was almost noon, I was drowsy. She had boarded three stations ago, standing for a while in the corner until she managed to find a seat, luckily opposite to mine. She looked 25, but could have been younger or older; I am not a good judge. I was distracted by her appearance. She was voluptuous, with extra generous curves and very fair skin. Dressed in jeans and a loosely fitted shirt, she sat staring into her phone, conscious of all the eyes pinned on her, including my own. The air was heavy with sweat and masculinity; she looked diminutive, almost non-existent, in comparison.

I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I was constantly drawn towards her neck. Concealed partly by her open hair, adorned with an expensive-looking chain, it seemed to be playing hide and seek with my eyes. I was hooked. The neckline of her shirt sat tentatively on her sizeable breasts. Desperate for a glimpse of what lay underneath, I found myself wishing she had sat beside me instead. She had caught my gaze a couple of times already and had stared back at me questioningly. But I was clever enough to look away and act innocent. I'd wait for just a few seconds before affixing my eyes on her again. She was awfully pretty: how could I be expected not to feast my eyes on her? And clearly she was enjoying the attention; she kept brushing her hair behind her ears and adjusting her top self-consciously. She was in on my intentions, and that realisation spurred me on. 

For the third time, she looked up from her phone and caught me staring at her. She looked irritated, or was that a look of impatience? I wondered. Maybe distant gazing was not her thing. She seemed restless. She certainly had to be aware of the effect her clothes and her body were having on me. She would not be travelling in the general coach in those clothes if she had expected anything better. I considered getting up from my seat and standing next to hers. I would get a much better glance down her shirt from that vantage point, while also satisfying her need for proximity. That thought made me smile.

I had been busy conjuring up mental pictures of her breasts when I felt a rude push: an old hag had just parked herself in the seat next to me. Brought back to my senses thus, I realised my gaze had unconsciously been glued to her torso this entire time. I looked up at her face: she was staring daggers at me. I was instantly puzzled by her reaction. What had I done wrong? As I sat there wondering my next move, there was an announcement for the next station. She got up, clutching her bag tightly, and made her way towards the door. But all of a sudden she stopped, and I watched in a confused daze as she turned her steps towards me. Crossing the short passageway that separated us, she flashed the sweetest smile any female had ever given me. I looked at her expectantly and, the very next moment, felt a sharp stinging sensation on the left side of my face. My jaw had been struck square in the middle with near-inhuman force. I couldn't see clearly; my head was beginning to swim.

It took me a while to become aware of my surroundings again. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her retreating figure on the platform as the metro sped past. I looked around and suddenly felt the heat of countless pairs of eyes affixed on me. I felt diminutive, almost non-existent. Turning exceedingly self-conscious, I fished out my phone from my pyjama pocket and sat staring down at its blank screen.

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Click here for my most popular post on the ladies coach and the different kinds of people found in the Delhi Metro. It got me trending for quite a while - don't miss out on reading it.

Coping with Pain

I remember this time long long ago, when I was probably 8 or 10 (random guess, I don't really know). It was a Sunday and mom was harnessing all the manpower she could lay her hands upon (read: me, sister and dad) into cleaning up the house, every nook and cranny. I'm talking about the days when we didn't have a housekeeper/maid and had no need for one either. Now I have never been a hard-worker or a cleanliness-freak, and I would do anything to not have to encounter dust as it gives me a highly irritating allergy. So I was kind of slacking in my job of dusting dad's medicine rack. Did I also ever mention how I have always been afraid of scoldings and anyone yelling at me? It frightens me to the extent that I start keeping a distance from the person who yells at me or fights with me.


Anyway, mom caught me slacking and gave me a piece of her mind; I panicked and the medicine bottle went crashing from my hand onto the floor. Glass pieces scattered all over. Another piece of her mind followed. Anyhow she cleaned up the mess and we resumed our respective tasks, this time my making sure I didn't become lax. In the meantime a mean little shard of glass that might have been left out got embedded into my heel. I felt the pinch but was too scared to stop working and risk another scolding and thus went about my work with a slight limp. Now I am a pro at hiding my feelings, especially pain. So no one discovered my limp or the injury for a long time, how long I fail to recall now. The glass obviously went deeper and caused more pain as time went by.

In a few days I guess, one of our beloved uncles visited us. He used to be a total child-pleaser, playing with us, giving us mock plane rides and recounting educative animal stories. And as fate would have it, he noticed my limp when no one else at home did. He asked about it and I came out with the truth. People got worried, analyzed the wound, plucked the glass out somehow and administered required first aid. End of story. I remember no more.

Now the reason why this memory keeps coming back is that I am in pain. And it reminds me of how long and silently I can cope with it. Though I'd consider it a good trait, but it isn't something my mother is proud of. She still almost cries on recalling this incident and laments that I should voice my feelings more; should tell them when I am in pain, so that they do not unknowingly subject me to more suffering and can take necessary action to ease my pain. If only I could do that. But it just isn't me. I wouldn't utter a sound until the pain gets too impossible to bear. Let's just say my body is wired that way. Its threshold of tolerance to pain is a couple of notches higher than any average person like me. I've had multiple ear piercings done at an age when they hurt a lot, eye syringing (read: medical procedure done by inserting a needle into the nictitating membrane of the eye to check if the nasal passage is blocked) done three times, had my left foot sprained about 11-12 times in the last 4 years and undergone a lot more painful stuff I cannot keep track of. I do feel pain, it isn't like I don't. I just don't like to make a show of it, I don't know why. It feels so much more awesome if someone expresses concern on seeing me all bandaged up, and I smile and say "I'm fine". Okay, that may not be the real reason. But I have no answer to why I hide my pain. I was just made that way, much to everyone's chagrin, either by life or by my very own nature and temperament.

But this is why I no longer have leverage with my family and friends as someone who is truly suffering an ordeal. Since I always grin and bear it, over the years they have started assuming that I am fine, so they've dropped the niceties, stopped running errands for me and even asking about my health, even though I am as much in pain as ever. I don't know how I can change that. It's human tendency - we all evolve and adapt. So I've adapted to the indifferent treatment and learnt to fend for myself even in sickness and pain.

But I had this terrible fall yesterday, very similar to the one I had a few years ago, the fateful fall that kick-started all these foot instability issues I have today. It sends chills down my spine to even remember that day...it has shaped my life in more ways than I can count. Though it's the other foot today - the right one. All the more reason to panic, since I don't want it to have the same fate as the left had. Amen.

So the fall yesterday was so bad, I couldn't move my foot at all. I somehow found my way home, slumped down on the sofa right in front of the main door and couldn't get off it for hours. I lay there quiet all day long, hoping that I'd be able to stand up soon enough. But finally when it was time to shift into the neighboring room, I couldn't even touch my foot to the ground without excruciating pain. But I had to move nevertheless, so I managed to play langdi-taang, or to put it in better words, hopped on one foot until the next room. I lay down on the bed there and cried for the next 20 minutes. Yeah, I cried, and I cried very hard. It pained so bad I just could not control myself. Those few meters of hopping felt like my entire foot was being ripped apart and burnt. My mother would surely have been surprised to see me cry, though I could hardly see her through all those tears. She consoled me tenderly and I felt warm, something I haven't experienced in a very long time. She sat by my side for a while, dialing up the doctor's to consult, bringing me various necessities and asking whether I needed anything else. It was when she left that strangely I burst out crying again, realizing that I hadn't had so much care showered upon me in a long long time. It felt...strange. Nice surely...but strange. Was it because of the crying? Probably yes. But it taught me a big lesson. If you expect care or concern, you must let your feelings be known and ask for it yourself. No point expecting anyone to care for you of their own accord. In today's busy time, no one would bother unless you show them that you need them. Alas, I am so used to coping with pain now that I don't feel the need of anyone's care anymore. And that is where I lose every time...

8 of My Worst Fears

Until recently, I used to pride over the fact that I’m not afraid of anything – ghosts, vampires, lizards, cockroaches, darkness, heights or water – just any damn thing. And then I sat down to think about what to write in this third post of The 10 Day YOU Challenge series. And it hit me – I have many fears in life. I just never classified them into that specific psychological category called “fears”. But they were present all along, some mere childish, but some more deep-rooted than I would admit. So with this post, I try to come clean with the 8 major fears that lie inside of me.

1. Right from my childhood, I’ve always feared, while moving in the darkness of night across the short passageway leading to my parents’ room, that some kind of monster or the Grinch or the once-famous three-headed witch might come and whisper in my ear or try to grab me from the back. No, you were not supposed to laugh. It isn’t technically even a fear; as I mentioned above, I don’t fear ghosts. It’s more like, I’m sure this is gonna happen some or the other day, so why don’t I walk mentally prepared as to what I’ll do when something like that swoops down upon me? You can say I’m just smart.

2. I always fear, while moving about, that my cellphone will fall down. Believe it or not, but that’s a fear very dominant in my day to day life. It has happened earlier, and it really sucks, seeing your precious phone lying on the ground divided into separate pieces. So I usually hold it in a tight grip while traveling.

3. I fear loneliness. Rather I hate it. I just can’t take it. I remember this one time during my initial days in college (the one I attended only for a month before starting with my current one) when I realized how lonely I can sometimes start to feel. It was like we were a huge group of friends who used to move together. And then one day I had some work in college and the others slowly trickled away, to the market or homewards or whatever. But it was when I suddenly needed help with something and I found no one around, that I started feeling very bad. And then I started sobbing, and tried hiding the tears, which I surprisingly failed at. So I unwillingly called up a friend. They came back and consoled me, and everything was fine, but the fact is I never quite realized why I cried at that moment. Today, I know. And I just admitted it here.

4. In some direct or indirect conjugation with the last point, I fear loss. In these mere 20 years of my life I’ve lost many a loved ones. Such is life. You love a person, be it a friend or best friend or a family member or a significant other, and then you suddenly lose them to death or misunderstandings or sometimes totally inexplicable reasons. That’s when you know what loss means, and what kind of emptiness it entails for life. I still find it hard to cope with life’s losses sometimes. And I fear having to face any more of them.

5. I fear the possible consequences of not being afraid in life. In simpler words, I am very cool about most things in life. I don’t plan my life for more than two days ahead; I take my career very coolly, rather maybe a bit too non-seriously. I believe everything will set itself right; I just tread on, doing what I have to do. It’s what keeps me sane, happy and tension-free. But I fear, this approach to life might someday prove itself to be wrong at some later point in life. I might end up with a sad job, meager salary or who knows not even that. But then again, this fear is only a latent one. If I fretted over this so much, I wouldn’t be living the kind of tension-free life I do.

6. I am always afraid of falling over the edge of the Ram/Lakshman Jhoolas into the holy water of the Ganges whenever I visit the sacred city of Rishikesh. I don’t know if it’s plain fear, or a case of realization of all the sins I’ve ever committed, thereby fearing I might be punished for them by being flung over the bridge by some unseen force into the river. Far-fetched, I know.

7. I fear losing all my good friends one day. Rather some day very soon. A few friends have been trying to convince me that this will never happen, but I can’t shake off this feeling, try as I may. I already feel distant from some of the very friends I would otherwise survive on. I just hope this fear is temporary and futile.

8. I fear the day I’ll have to be separated from my mother. I don’t know whether it’ll be harder for me or for her. But it’s the one fear that has been haunting me very regularly of late.

There, you know a very significant part of ME now. No, seriously. If you know a person's likes, secrets and fears, you can easily predict a large part of that person's character and temperament, as far as I believe. Confessing my fears took a lot of courage and self-belief. And I feel good. :)

Don't forget to share your thoughts and fears! :) And also remember to leave me the links to your 10 Day YOU Challenge posts, if you happen to write any!