Everything I write
Has a story to tell
I wonder if you
Are able to figure out
Or I need to tell.
Messy are some
Some straight forward
But most of them go
Straight down the line to
Meet the utmost level of
Lonesomeness.
I do wish to write
About the happiness
And if I do so
A lot will stay inside
And make me want to
Live less
As someone rightly said-
The things we keep hidden
Inside of us tend to
Make us bleed from
Very inside of us.
‘Oh my god!’ ‘Have you written this?’, was the first reaction of my Grandma when she read the recent
poem, I had written in my poetry book. The book that I started writing in the month of September, the
book that completed two months now, the book whose every inch is filled with my emotions, the book
that I named ‘Remnants of My Soul’, the book with which I can share everything as an old friend, as
someone who understands.
‘Yes.’, I said.
‘Yes. Why would you write such a thing?’
‘I would write such a thing because I’ve felt it. Does it even matter what I write and what I feel? No, it
doesn’t. So, it’s better we talk about something else.’
‘Oh of course it does matter to me, Rehana. After all I’m you Grandmother. Why on earth do you think
that something like this won’t bother me?’
‘Because it doesn’t make any difference to anyone. How am I? How do I feel? You see, nobody cares. All
of them, they just care about themselves. Nobody in this house is trying to understand me. They don’t
try to understand that I need my own time and my own personal space so that I can heal. They just
think, I waste my time the whole day and do no work.’
It is her, in front of whom, I finally spoke my heart out. But what I felt bad about was, when I spoke, it
did contain a pinch of anger in it and she wasn’t even the reason for it and because it was her, my
grandmother, who I talked abruptly with. My grandmother, who was more like a friend to me, a
companion who had always been with me and guided me through the ups and downs of my life and had
always shown me the right path whenever I was lost. What she did for me was even more than what my
parents did for me.
The relation between me and her, took a pause almost two years ago, when she was sixty years old and
I was just sixteen. For two years, she was busy travelling the world. She travelled Spain, Italy, New
Zealand, Greece and Australia. It was only once or twice that I was able to talk to her then. In those two
years my life changed a lot, my school ended, I became a college student and my school mates, who I
thought would always be a part of my life had already moved to other cities for pursuing their 12+
education. Eventually, they dissolved so well into their new environment that they forgot what our
friendship was to us and that I still existed.
She closed the book and kept it on the table, exactly where she had picked it from. She walked towards
me and sat down beside me. To my surprise, without any irritation or anger and a lot of concern, she
asked me, ‘What happened with you, my dear?’
I told her, how my life had changed in those two years. How everything went down the hill and how
many emotions I had been through. I also told her why my parents didn’t let me stay in a hostel (not
because they couldn’t afford it, but because my parents thought I was not yet ready for a hostel life).
Even when I told her how much I longed for death, she listened without interrupting; not that she was
lost somewhere, indeed she was trying to understand every inch of what I was saying.
‘I can understand what all and how much you must have felt in those two years, Rehana. My dear, two
years is a very long time and you feeling those feelings and emotions for two long years is a very big
deal. She paused and said, ‘It’s okay to feel that way, my dear. What’s wrong is continuing to feel that
way, all the time.’
At first, I was irritated when I heard what she was saying, but what she spoke after the pause moved
something inside me. For two long years, I never really listened to anybody. I had so much stuffed inside
of me that I felt I had no space for anything new and now that I had spoken my heart out and I felt
different on the inside, I reckoned, I now had some space that could be filled with something new.
I was calm now so, I asked her, ‘You say you know what I have felt. Why do you say so?’ She nodded to
herself, as though giving an approval of something.
She spoke, ‘There was a time in my life, when nothing was going right. Everything traced the path that
went down the hill. The time in my life, when I was filled with all sorts of negative things on the inside.
The time when I literally begged god for death even when I desperately wanted to live.’
She continued, ‘One night, I saw a dream, a dream that changed a lot, not around me but inside of me. I
dreamt of one of my friends, who was known to me in dreams but not in real life, falling off a cliff. I saw
him falling right in front of me and I could do nothing to save him, nothing except being traumatized and
feeling guilty of not being able to save him. When I saw him falling, to save him, I thought of jumping off
the cliff but there was nothing around my waist, which could have pulled us upwards or with which we
could have saved ourselves. He was out of sight in no time. I was gazing down the cliff, I couldn’t even
make out its height, I could only see trees and nothing else down there. Then, I thought of me, not
about my survival but of my pain and how much I longed for death. Standing right there and gazing
down the cliff, I totally knew it was just a dream. But I had heard tales of people meeting death even in
their sleep. I felt I had a choice, the choice to be no more. The choice I always wanted to choose. I was
then relieved that finally, I could choose death; that in no more than two steps, I would get what I
wanted for so long. I then started this small journey of taking those two steps forwards, to experience
the fall. But in those moments, something inside of me resisted with all its might. That something asked
me two questions. It asked, “Is it really what you want or is it the other way round? Is it true that you
want to greet the death or is true you want to meet happiness?” It was then, that I realized what I
actually wanted. It was then, that I realized I can choose to be happy if I want to be happy. It was then,
that I realized I can break the wall of negativity that I had built around myself. I then turned around and
started walking. As I walked, I saw flowers, trees and butterflies all around me. I felt I had never seen a
place more beautiful than that. The dream ended. I woke up and sat up in my bed. I thought about the
dream, once again, going through what had happened. As I reached the end, I felt it was God’s way of
helping me out. God’s way of making me understand, what I wanted to choose. God’s way of making me
understand that it wasn’t the death I wanted to greet, but it was the happiness that I was longing to
meet.’
‘And that very day, my dear, I started off on this beautiful journey of loving myself, each and every day
of my life. Yes, I encountered sadness and downfalls but that never stopped me from loving myself. Even
today, when my life goes down the hill, I choose the second choice which has already taken the first
place, for me. And I keep promising myself that I’ll choose the same choice over and over again, the
choice that allows me to be happy in every circumstance of life.’
The story ended. For a few moments silence filled the space between us, nor did she neither did I spoke.
She then gazed around my room as though she was gazing at the flowers, trees and butterflies. And
then, she left.
She left, because she wanted her own space and so that I could get my own to reflect upon. What my
grandma told me that day made a huge difference to me. Once again, my grandma, my friend, my
companion had showed me the right path. She made me realize the worth of my own existence. From
that very day, I started uplifting myself more and more each day and made room for new things of life. I
never forgot to cherish my own existence. Little by little, I started making necessary and beautiful
changes inside of me. I started living my life for myself, once again. And after some time, I re-wrote the
poem my grandma read which goes on like this:
Everything I write
Everything I write
Has a story to tell
I wonder if you
Are able to figure out
Or I need to tell.
Messy are some
Some straight forward
Most did go
Straight down the line
To meet the utmost level of
Lonesomeness
And yes
Most have started
Going up the line
To meet the utmost level of
Happiness.
I did wish to write
About the happiness
And now I do write
About the happiness
Cause a lot of it
Cooks inside of me
And makes me want to
Live more
As someone rightly said-
If you water the right flowers
The right flowers will
Definitely bloom.