Of Cakes and Candles

“Happy birthday to you!” sang the throng in the hall in whose centre I stood beaming, with the usual slight awkwardness. Despite the ‘I-don’t-know-where-to-look’ dilemma, happiness was filling me like helium fills balloons. I could almost feel myself lifting off the ground to join the red and blue and yellow ones sticking to the high ceiling. I didn’t need a wish! I had all the people I loved around me on my special day and they were here for me. They had made their way to me, squeezed me into their rapid, crowded schedules. As the singing, albeit off-key (but who cared), fizzled out, the lights around me dimmed, making the candles on the three-pound, chocolate mud cake before me spread their orange-y glow seep out. I still didn’t need a wish, but, taking a panorama around the room, I closed my eyes for a customary one anyway.
I closed my eyes and blew out the solitary candle on the cupcake on my bedside table, plunging my tiny, one-bedroom flat into complete darkness. Turning over, I pulled the covers over my head on my narrow single bed and went to sleep. The cat didn’t come back tonight either.

Of Wrongs and Rights

She felt as though her ribs had shattered
Into a million shark-teeth
That were slowly sinking
Into her ravaged heart
That someone had squeezed
Into a pulp, a bloody, messy pulp
That could be rotting away
Into a stinking bitterness
That smelled pungent, boring
Into her flaring nostrils
That made her eyes pour
Into a tear-stained pillow
That lay beneath her throbbing head.

They said what she felt was wrong

Simply because,
She didn't have the right. 

Scars Do Not Heal

Love returned had caused a funny sensation in his heart. It was the most curious of emotions; if he were to touch it, it tingled; if he were to poke it, it screamed in agony. Knowing not what to do with it, he finally fashioned from it a breathtakingly, devastatingly handsome double-edged sword. It was sharp enough to slice a strand of spiderweb into two perfect halves down the middle and shiny enough to reflect the sun one hundred  thousand times more.

Yet, there was something more wonderous than the fashioning of this magnificent sword was happening inside his heart. The place now made vacant by the disappearing pain was gradually being seduced by revenge. Revenge made him angry. Revenge made him wish others ill. He wanted the beautiful sword to bleed them, reduce them into an excruciating mess. And, it made him feel good.

So he did. Remorselessly. Unabashedly. Illogically. The sight of the flowing blood made him grin.

But soon he discovered weals, cuts and wounds on his own arms and legs, face too. He had forgotten that his sword of pain had two equally dangerous edges. Slowly his whole body was tattooed with scars from unfought battles. He, however, did not realize this until he attained a great age and children and grandchildren of his own.

His progeny, blinded by the sword's brilliance, wanted it exclusively for himself or herself. He, however, before they could make their claims, understood at last that the people he had hurt were no different from his own self. That very moment, the sword shattered into millions and millions of minuscule shards, each still as sharp and shiny as their original. The pieces, left to themselves, were scattered by unknowing winds far and wide.

Histories later, all of us have inherited those shards. All of us have used it too. They have caused us the scars we no longer want to explain.

Hey, Stupid

Slid the metal into its latch,
Closed, shut and locked
One more door. 

Checked for gaps and chinks
And sealed them in bad poetry
Mean sarcasm
And junk food, at times.

Was busy
Checking, rechecking and multichecking
Locked, relocked and multilocked doors,
Separating, hiding, shielding.

Didn't realize
That the walls were crumbling,
Whispering their demise
Into unnoticed breaths and sighs.
Walls made of still-frames
Hopes
And favourite quotes
Of memories,
Stains
And growing-up-pains;

I was sitting behind closed doors
In a room with no walls.

Of course,I looked stupid.

To and From

I run,

Mostly from things.

I run from people, lest I bump into someone
and hurt them,
Or, get hurt.

I run from responsibilities, lest they become
nothing but an anglomeration
Of burdens and liabilities.

I run from love, lest
It happened to me.

But all I wanted was to run to something,
That something being something like you.

Labour Pains

"Dad, how was I born?"

Years later, when the son had one of his own, he finally understood his father's answer - "We made you that night when we made love instead of having sex."

Listen Up, Girls!

1. Guys hate those who flirt cheaply.
So, that means girls like 'cheap flirting'? Or is this an excuse for weird jealous possessiveness? What IS 'cheap flirting' anyway?

2. Guys do cry.
Breaking news! A guy was spotted CRYING in the streets downtown! I repeat, he was CRYING!

3. It's not just the looks guys fall for, they also like girls who are not so pretty.
Thank you for giving more women body-image issues.

4. If guys care about you, they will overlook your bad traits.
And this is reassuring how? Isn't it better if the person accepts you for your good traits as well as the bad?

5. Guys love it when you smile.
Unless you are the Grinch. Thanks Mr. Obvious.

6. Guys don't like it if you talk about your ex-boyfriends.
And girls LOVE it when guys tell them about all the girls they've slept with.

7. Guys are hesitant to talk to a girl they like.
Because girls are actually Charizards in disguise and will incinerate any guy who comes near. I thought that both girls and guys are shy/awkward in the presence of the person they liked.

8. Guys don't like it when you play hard to get.
So girls, always say yes to anything guys ask you. Seriously, there would be so much lesser rapes/sexual harassment/violence against women if they just said yes to all the stalkers and lechers. Why should it matter whether or not the girl is at all interested.

9.Guys like it when you can stand up for yourself.
Wait, isn't this contradictory to the previous tip? Also, a backbone is an admirable quality in all human beings.

10. Guys want someone to listen to them.
Gee, I didn't EVER think of that.



Why do these tips at all exist? Are they attempts to break the dichotomy between young-adults of the two genders? Aren't they back firing and re-emphasizing the duality itself? Isn't this yet another way of cementing the stereotypes? Isn't it a way of saying that girls will never understand guys (and vice versa) unless they are tabulated and spoon fed into their brains? Isn't it trying to establish heterosexuality as the only acceptable norm?

Most of the points in these so-called tips can be applicable for both men and women. I don't see the reason why these should be split up into "guys want girls to know" and "girls want guys to know" categories. Everyone, irrespective of their genders like a mature, sensible, happy person. Both genders expect the other person to care about them and accept them for who they are. Everyone wants someone to listen to them, without judging. It's weird how gender-stereotypes are reinforced everyday. In the end, we all want the same thing - love.

It's a debatable issue and I too am grappling with possible answers and outcomes. Till we find them, a little sense would really be appreciated.