The good die young, I wish this thought could make people feel better. But it’s not comforting for the mother who looses her child, the sibling who loses his closest friend or the wife who has to raise her kids alone. How senseless life is!

My youngest Uncle (Mama) was not even forty when he passed away, leaving behind his widow with three children. Four years later, his elder brother not even fifty passed away, leaving behind, his wife and three kids. It’s unbearable the enormity of that.

A friend of my brother’s passed away. I must have met him not more than ten times. But he was volatile and sarcastic, like I am, so we had conversations that were a bit off. Ofcourse he had much nicer qualities than I do. I did end up attending a lot of weddings on my brother’s behalf. I never thought I would be attending funerals, too. You feel as if you get over pain caused by loss but the minute you see someone experiencing the same thing, bam, the feelings just overwhelm you. Also when you’ve been suspecting, there’s something in your breast and someone has just died of cancer, you feel a little bit more, than you should.

You also notice, what happens to the people around. All the relationships we are so busy maintaining, half of those people don’t care. It’s just the closest one’s, who needs us, who are actually shattered. In the olden times, people were less practical. So there were rituals after rituals, which ensured the family wasn’t alone, someone was with them. People gathered around you, to distract you and to help you heal. Those were simpler times…better times.

In Kashmir, even now, if anyone in the neighbourhood is sick, people will pay them a visit. If someone dies everyone just automatically comes to pay their last respects and then they remember the departed in their prayers. It seems a bit much, for us practical folks. But I like the Kashmiri ways, they take care of their own. Anyway, I took a pic of his to remember him by.

That’s all you can do, pray for them, their families, and feed the poor, hoping your karma makes their journey to wherever souls go, easier.

Fuming after yelling for more than an hour. The heart pounding like crazy. I’m so envious of people who have no reactions, no volatility. One is so fucking volatile, never know what is going to send me for a toss.

‘These guys think we are dating’, tells me Ocean for the umpteenth time. Having heard it as many times, should probably make me immune to this crap. But I heard so much shit from ‘these’ guys , many moons ago, that one is not in the mood to be bullied into a corner, again. SB is in charge, after all. ‘ Why?’ ‘What?’ ‘How come you are here?’ ‘When?’ ‘Where’ ‘How come you’re here alone?’, these questions are never asked to the men. In one’s head, one is allowed to do everything that men are, that’s why they are so perturbed by me.

A slew of obscenities later, she just can’t have this conversation, again. The trouble with being soooo open about your life is that, people assume there are many more hookups, than there have been. Which is ok, human beings usually like to pretend to be better than they are, therefore, they hide what may make them look bad. I on the other love being bad, so there is a more casual, callous way, in which I roll out things, which may make look more blasé than one is. It’s when I get linked with men towards whom I have brotherly feelings, that’s when I loose my shit.

You would assume society changes. But all the damn money and education, doesn’t change people. Maybe a little dent, here and there but it just doesn’t bring about the change as rapidly as it should.

I don’t know if it’s the terrible news, of someone passing or the wine that made the dreams horrible but I’ve woken up feeling miserable.

Someone mentions on Fb that they are flying to Srinagar and I feel homesick. Don’t mistake me to be Kashmiri, the way the journalist did, just because I call it my home away from home. I just left my heart by the side of the Dal, sometimes I need to go and check, if it stills beats.

Hummar tuta hoa dil pada he, Dal ke kinare. Koi aate jaate, usse le aana. Kumbakht kabhi to kam aayega!