I am a nobody.

I am a nobody. I am boring. I have no witty stories, profound experiences or battle tales. I am absolutely uninteresting. Completely not engaging. I have not been sixteen and fought for female education and been shot at by Taliban. I have not been arrested for bringing a home-made clock to school. I did not have to go into hiding during the Holocaust. I have not survived cancer, I barely even get a fever. Nor am I a step-sibling to a wildly overrated ex-porn star. Neither do I have a natural talent for say singing, or origami. None. Zilch. I have been procrastinating and banging my head on the keyboard of my laptop for the past week while trying but miserably failing at composing college essays, cringing at my lack of profound experiences. I am just a simple girl who likes to sketch and watch Game of Thrones. I enjoy sunrises, those handful of moments when the dark skies are torn apart by fingers of rosy dawn. I am most content when I read classics. I like being transported to a faraway land, long long before I was even born; all while physically being cooped up on my window, but mentally miles and aeons away. I like discovering new cities, wandering around streets and lanes of a place I have never been before. I live for road trips with my family; for my dad singing the words wrong to the song on the radio, mum reprimanding my brother and I for getting us late. I absolutely adore the goofy times spent with my pet German Shepherd running around the meadow near our farmhouse. I derive great pleasure while solving challenging mathematical problems; numbers make sense to me. I have not fought for female rights, or racism. I do not have software companies fighting for rights over my genius software creation. I have no untapped source of talent. I am absolutely not extraordinary, rather extra ordinary. I am a nobody.

I slept in last night's clothes and tomorrow's dreams.

She felt herself drowning before she opened her eyes. She reveled in the feeling of being enveloped and embraced by water. Her thoughts drowned her like anchors at sea. It was as if a dead weight was tied to her ankle, tugging her down into the deep, dark, boundless ocean. 

Above her, she saw rays of sunlight piercing through the veil of the water. And below her, the dark unknown, slowly reeling her in. One kick. That is all she would need to regain control of her body and wade back to the surface. One stroke and she could go back. Was it worth going to those days where you could only count the hours until they were over? Was it worth going back to those 2am musings about a life you never lived? Maybe it's your fault you're drowning. Maybe it's your fault you're frowning. All you can do is watch in despair, as all of their stares drift further away as you're pulled out to sea. But drowning wasn't your fault, right?

She could feel the water filling her lungs and soon numbness wrapped its slender fingers around her and creeped into her soul. 

She was as deep as the unexplored ocean, there was so much more to her than anyone had ever found. And that's why people fell in love with her, they fell in love trying to understand her. But she never felt the same way, no one could hold their breath long enough to get to the bottom of her.

She drowned anyone who ever tried.

If this is to end in fire, then we should all burn together.

This month has given me so many new experiences and lessons- learnt the harder way, nonetheless, eye-openers. I haven't had time to catch my breath, and am still reeling in the daze of its aftershocks. 

***

On 1st March I attended my first concert. It was the first time Ed Sheeran came to India and I just could not pass up the opportunity (If you don't know who Ed is, click here ) 

That day was the first time in a very long time that I felt like a real teenager. A rebel, perhaps? I have always been an old soul, and I'd prefer staying in my PJs all day and read or watch tv shows, if I could. But of course the fact that I'm giving my A-levels this year, doesn't give me much time to do that. 

So coming back to the point, I don't go to clubs and get drunk off my ass at every chance I could get. This concert seemed like a rite of passage to becoming a normal urban teenager. I am a homebody. I prefer my books and fictional characters to people. So when I was suddenly pushed into an arena with about three thousand other people approximately my age, barely clothed, girls with their faces caked with makeup and guys with that ridiculous near-Mohawk, I was a little skeptical about the future of the world. With the risk of sounding like my grandpa, if this is the state of today's generation I really don't look forward to the world where our fate lies in the hands of these high, drunk, scarcely clothed animals. But looking at the condition of the world right now, I do not think it would make much of a difference anyway ( I mean, a ban on beef? What is up with you Maharashtra! Be practical and get your shit together, government.)

Once Ed came onstage it was a completely different atmosphere. A different vibe altogether. All of us from different nooks and crannies of Mumbai, were united and equally captured in this one emotion- admiration and maybe even love for this gentle, lovely voice. The whole crowd started belting out the lyrics together. It was beautiful. Mesmerizing. I was so overwhelmed.

This had to be the highlight. Almost surreal.

Another highlight of this month was this assignment I was given by my coordinator at school. I was to teach physics to 9th graders, as a part of an experiment. I was a little apprehensive about it because I can't particularly boast about my people skills. I'm an awkward potato, and what if I make a fool out of myself? I don't think I can handle getting ridiculed by a bunch of fourteen year olds. I'll die of embarrassment. Reluctantly, I agreed to it.

I was given the outline of the lesson and a worksheet to get done in class, and was told that I'll be teaching after a week. But when my coordinator cornered me three days later and asked if I could conduct my class that day, I was dumbfounded. My palms started sweating and my chest felt hollow. The lesson was no problem, but I have no idea what to do. How should I behave? How should I treat them? Why me? ugh.

So I just played it cool. Told myself it was just like teaching my brother. I brought in examples of X-men and Zindagi na Milegi Dobara to clear concepts of falling bodies and terminal velocity. Taught them tricks to find the slope of a graph. Allowed them to have wrestling matches to explain forces and their effects. Time flew by and it was already the end of class. By the time I packed up, I had kids coming to me and telling me how 'cool' a teacher I was and asking me if I would replace their actual teacher. I couldn't stop laughing, that had to be the greatest compliment I could have received and I had a goofy smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I taught the class for two days, and by the time I was done there was a heavy weight on my chest. I never thought I'd enjoy teaching so much, the moment when the understanding dawns in the kid was my favorite. It was so rewarding. I really had this connection with those kids. I'm going to miss those two days.

***

Zayn Malik left One Direction. I never saw this coming. I really wanted to see all five of them perform together live one day. Guess that's never happening.

***

That's all from my side. I now have a bunch of  submissions and textbooks calling my name :(
Ciao.

She's the giggle at a funeral

There was a slight bite in the air that night. The trees lining the curb rustled as the wind breezed by. The periodic sound of waves flinging themselves at the rocks and crashing the wall we were sitting on; calmed my erratic heartbeat. The air smelled of salt, aftershave and bad decisions. The streetlights glowed in a systematic line down the street, their yellow light creating a halo around his ruffled hair and a havoc of butterflies in my stomach. His hair was always messed up no matter how much he tried to tame it down; I smiled. Occasionally a car or two would speed by, but other than that the city which never sleeps seemed to have blown off the candles and retired for the day. Except for us maybe.

Just one night, he had said. One night for us to be who we were. Tomorrow we'll let the distance tear us apart. Tonight is about us. Just us.

The lights on the part of the road that curved ahead of us, reflected in the water, and almost glinted like jewels. We didn't need words to fill the air hanging between us. Silence was comforting. It was magical.

I felt his hand slip into mine and his face turn towards mine, and lift into a smile.

"Monalisa, one last dance?"

The way he said 'last' made me cringe internally, but I just laughed as he pulled me up. He put my hands around his neck, and rested his own on my waist. He looked right into my eyes and the whole city around us could've been up in flames at that point of time and I wouldn't have known.

I could see all our memories together. How he always made me happy, as if it was his ultimate goal in life. How nice it felt to be around him, how right it felt, how I used to go to sleep with a smile on my face every single night. How giving up all of that meant giving up my chance at happiness.
The late night conversations, the darkest secrets and the promises for a future together, all swimming around us, and suddenly it all became too much to handle. A tear trickled down my cheek and I let go of my hold over him, literally and figuratively, and just ran for my life.

And he didn't chase me.

Distance will inevitably tear us apart, but I think our choices already did.