A Bitter Suffering

I had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, as I opened the door noiselessly. A dim, dull light had crept in from the door that opened and shone upon the face of the ill body. Her eyebrows narrowed and a hint of displeasure darkened her face. The footsteps made the matter worse. The very sound of the tapping of the feet on the floor made her uneasy and a pair of eyes began to track my movement. I wished to move a little closer but stopped short. In a sudden move, her mouth gaped and her eyes, exactly the opposite. She started writhing in pain, groaning. It was agonising to see her suffer this way. It was as if she was being tortured by The Cruciatus Curse. Her face was pale and old. The very next moment, the pain seemed to go away as she eased her brow and closed her eyes again. She dozed off once again. 

I was overcome with grief. Pain is painful to see. I looked around the room. The side table had the vase on it with flowers that were beginning to wilt. The clock on the wall displayed a strange sense of time passing away quickly. The music that echoed in the room was a dry piano symphony. It was disgusting to look at her. I looked out of the window to get the sight out of my mind, when I sensed a pair of eyes fixed on me. I turned around, to look directly into her dark, cold eyes. She had not expected a visitor. She stared at me as if I had intruded on her territory, a trespasser. She let out a curse under her breath.
She moved a little, tried to reach for the glass of water by her bedside. A stinking smell assailed my nostrils as I moved towards her to help with it. She extended her arm, reaching out to shut off the music. I could see water in her eyes. She couldn’t bear the pain anymore. She groaned from time to time. There was no sense of day or night for her.
She fixed her eyes on me, in suspicion. Her face was as lifeless as that of a corpse. There was food on the table with flies hovering all over it. She looked at it, and threw it on the floor. She curled herself inside the blanket as if she feared my presence. She cleared her throat as if in an attempt to say something, but stopped herself: she preferred loneliness to company. I made some space on her bed to sit. My heart was pounding fiercely. 

I held her cold hands and whispered faintly, “Amma, I’m here.”

I'M NOT AFRAID!

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. 
William Shakespeare 

Yesterday night an incessant, devilish voice dancing in my head kept holding me back; wanting me to simply stop writing because I couldn't write well. That was one voice. The other, the positive one that would ask me to move ahead, had been buried by the former one. That is when I realized how fearful man was. I was in constant fear of the criticism that I was going to face once I was done writing this. What are the people going to say? ‘The People’.  I really don’t get who all are included in this category.  Yet all sorts of thoughts one after the other poured into my head. Will they hate me for what I write?    As they say, ‘Please all and you will please none ’. So I shall probably not think about the idea of people.

Okay so you think my clothes are not in accordance with the latest fashion? Oh well, I don’t really care about it. You know there was this man who used to wear turtleneck t-shirt and a pair of jeans at every launch of his new product. Some time ago, I heard someone say “Hey I don’t like this guy’s dressing sense at all! I mean he’s wearing almost the similar clothes everyday!”  Boy did I feel pity for that girl. I felt like going up to her and informing her she was a fool. I mean come on man!  You’re playing with his toys and you’re uttering such words. You carry his products as a “status symbol”. How the heck do you think he’s going to give a shit to what you think of his outwear. He has a respect in the society with his Apple toys. He did great works in his life and proved his life was worth it. So yeah, you may take your bitchy ass somewhere else to say you don’t like his dressing sense. It doesn't matter to him because you’re paying him huge bucks!

The other day a friend called me up crying her heart out how people bogged her down in every way as she had rather philosophical views about everything in life. She told me how her friends were simply involved in socializing and gossiping around. I tried to reason out the logic behind the fear after listening to her sobbing story. I came to a logical conclusion. My advice: DO NOT FEAR THEM.  From the outside, they might be pretending to be socialites and trying to make you feel downtrodden. Yet from the inside they envy you, and feel pity for themselves as to how they are not as intellectual as you are.

Here as I write this post, I’m afraid of what people are going to say. It is quite likely they may not like my sense of humor  my writing, and my views. Yeah, that’s true. But what I know is: They are mine. Yes. These are my views. This is what I think. The Almighty could have made us like robots; one acting in the same way as the other. But fortunately he didn't  I have my own voice to speak, my personal views about a certain thing. 

I peep into the outer world and find there are people who write more beautifully and craftily than what I do. Reading their works and letting that devilish voice overpower me, I can simply sit back and pity myself how I am not able to write that way.  But if I let that positive buried voice dominate my thinking, I shall realize that I have a long way to go. I shall work hard and I have the belief in myself that one day my words shall be adored by all. And yes everything starts from the ground zero level. Great people didn't directly rise and reached the top. They had to face the criticism. They too were, at some point of time, ordinary people trying to find a place in this world.  

Finally after thorough scrutiny, I put down my cup of coffee and sat up in my chair. As I began to wrap up this post I faintly whispered “I’m not afraid”.  There’s a new voice now inside my head filled with positivity that encourages me to continue to write as long as I feel what I’m writing is not stupid and makes some sense.

So beginning today I‘ll write everything that comes to my mind. And if it’s sane, I shall not reconsider it thinking what people are going to say. It doesn't really matter what they say as long as I’m free to express myself. There’s something in me that you probably might not be having. That’s the reason why you’re not me.

CHEERS TO THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE!