IceAndBlood

  There are two things in life that can stop you from taking your own life, even if it is a few minutes away. One is a sense of purpose – when that unfinished task holds you back. Another is the deep love for a person –when you don’t want to leave that person alone, or you are scared of losing that person forever. Victor Frankl wrote this years ago but it took me years of agony and a drive to Shimla and back to Chandigarh, to finally assimilate the truth in it. Without beating about the bush, let me venture straight into my story. … People go for a vacation to take a short break. This year however, when a bunch of my friends decided to set off for Shimla-Manali, I looked upon it as a golden opportunity. I was not in for any short break. Fuck that. I was all for an absolute break from life. I didn’t plan on returning. Once we arrived, I discovered that the mountains were not so suited for jump-off. They could hardly be called steep, and even if you did dive, you would poss...

  There is something heartrending about the word ‘melancholy’. Heartrending and musical and pure and beautiful. Just like rain. I don’t connect rain with melancholy as most people do. I never find anything sad about rain. But heartrending, musical, pure and beautiful? Of course it’s all of that! Yet somehow, these two words ring with almost the same frequency, within me. I cannot think of one without thinking of the other. Both are as innate to me as the colour of my eyes or the texture of my hair. I don’t even have to think – they simply occur to me. As natural as it could be. Where I live – a small peninsula at the southern end of Asia – it’s been raining day and night… for weeks at a stretch. It might be insensitive of me to say this – considering the havoc this has wreaked elsewhere, but these days have been the happiest of the year, to me. All night, I could hear the rhythmic sounds of rain – falling, falling, falling, on my gorgeous city, my vagrant city, my lost city and...

  Recently, I went to Murshidabad with a few relatives, for a short trip. Relatives, as is in my case, would be the last people on earth whom I would like to accompany in a trip but then, sometimes, you have no other option than to compromise. Maybe one day isn’t enough to pass a judgment. Yet, I failed to find anything worthy of my wasted time and spree, over there. Historical places have never interested me and Murshidabad too had no reason to like me at all. So, I returned, broken, disgusted and enervated by the hardship of the journey.   On my way back, our bus halted near a petrol pump. I got down. It was a beautiful night. One of those nights that stun you. One of those nights that make you stop and listen to the sounds of silence. I wandered alone till I reached a small shop of chocolates, biscuits, spices, and other trivia. There were a couple of benches in front of the shop. About three to four people were sitting and lazing there. One of them grabbed a packet...