The Con Man

He watched her as she stood chatting away. A part of him was involved in the conversation but he knew he was actually watching her every move. It had been a fortnight since he had seen her.
He watched as her face fell but noticed that she recovered fast. Faster than he would have expected and he was surprised and proud at the same time. She had improved in the days that they has spent apart. He watched her eyes closely. They remained cold and untouched even as she laughed. The twinkle that used to stay in her eyes didn't show at all and the smile on her face wiped out the second the moment was over.

She was no longer the bubbly thing he had fallen for. His alienation from her had hardened her. She had said they were important. Could things have changed in just so long? Something had happened. What was it, or worse 'who' was it? He was afraid he knew.

He considered asking but decided against it. His body and facial reactions showed none of what he was thinking. He was a pro after all. She still had much to learn. But in the process of becoming like him he was losing the beautiful thing she was, without the hard exterior. She had said she trusted him, had that changed too?
He could see her face going soft just for a second as she looked at him and he knew she wasn't completely dead yet. He still had a chance. Their eyes locked for a moment so brief no one else noticed but all the unsaid was passed between them. He had missed her more than he could have imagined possible but she knew just as he did that he couldn't display it. It was all a show here and he was playing a character that wasn't him, and now so was she.
He had dragged her right into the centre of the crap that he did, the only person he trusted more than his own self, the woman who had taught him to breath, to relax, to live in a way that was so refreshing he had fallen in love with it. The same woman now stood before him as a replication of himself. One just as hard as stone and cold as ice.
She stood in between people she couldn't stand and laughed like she cared, like she actually gave a damn!
The equation had all changed and he knew now as he watched those once innocent eyes that it would never be the same again. The run was over. Hypocrisy and mistrust was in the air. He wasn't the only one to blame. He hadn't alone played the game, he knew she was aware of that but he had hurt her all the same and she had trusted them.
He was a man who had never cared for others, never cared if people loved or hated him, how did this one woman change all that? Why now as he watched her calculated expression did his heart ache? Why even when she poked at him in a 'friendly' way he felt the pain that she actually meant to incur? Was he guilty? Is this how it felt?
Was he a con man hopelessly in love with the one woman he had never actually managed to con? The one who had seen right through him, the one who had actually trusted the human he was, actually cared for the crap that he was. He felt the guilt, felt lowly and dirty.
The woman had become a robot because she finally learnt he wasn't worth her trust. And that fact pierced at him. Why? It wasn't the love or the care that mattered what had mattered the most was that she had understood. From the moment they shared one conversation she read him like a book. He would never accept but he knew.
He knew there was just one soul in the world who knew him. And there she stood in front of him now so distant even though he could touch her if he extended his hand. He had lost her before he even had her.

He heard his own laugh and it sounded alien. Suddenly everything seemed alien. The trees, the breeze, the chatter, the cars going by, even the face that looked at him now with that cold smile and he suddenly felt what he was pushing away all this while. The thought that scared him so much. He realized what it was. He was alone.

A con man always ended alone, it was elementary. But the small hope he had had from his pathetic existence was now shot dead. Because the woman who now stood in front of him was exactly what he was.

She was saying goodbye and turned to leave symbolic of what he felt. When she looked at him, she let the mask drop, just for a second and that was the last time he saw the woman that he had fallen for. The woman who was now leaving him all alone. The woman who he had lost.

The fire he saw in her eyes matched the one in his heart. He ached as he watched her go.

And that's when he felt it, the final regret. The one that drove him to write the one thing on that piece of paper when he got home and stood alone, “It has all changed”.

He thought of the face with it's mask dropped and then recalled the innocent childlike laugh, his heart soared just for a second as he remembered and then he shot himself.

He could con the world but not himself.

Our dignity is in Our hands

Getting a little political....

I read that an Indian ambassador was (in a local paper's words) 'Subjected to hands on frisking' in the U.S. airport. I would love to have added 'as usual' but alas no one has made the mistake of making me editor have they? (Yet..... :P)
Anyway not really a very novel piece of news but thought provoking you might say..

For those who have no idea about this piece of news, good for you honestly, the news goes that some Indian woman ambassador was pulled out of an airport security line and (again in the paper's words) was "patted down" or subjected to a "hands on" search. The woman was of course offended and the issue is blown out of proportion by some embassy or the other blah blah..

Some are saying she was singled out because she was clad in a saree, others are for some reason fixated on the words "patted down". I honestly do not know any 'legging down' or 'slapping up' technique of checking someone! But as it was done by a female officer why the hue and cry?

The Woman was probably worried about her diplomatic (ironic word usage!) status image (the fact that it was not recognised maybe) but the point is no one knows you are a whatever ambassador so why not suck it up an leave? Why create an issue? All you have succeeded in doing is reaching out to millions through the media and telling them that you are an important person that the US airport security people did not recognise or give a damn about! Now why would someone want to publicize that? When they don't care about Shahrukh Khan (implying a public figure not comparing work wise) why would they think twice about you?

In all the recent similar kind of incidents right from Abdul Kalam to many who aren't famous enough to come in the papers, these mild bends in security to down right atrocities are not a new thing to hear of. But what I would like to bring to light, which we all seem to miss is, forget who and concentrate on why....

For centuries we have been discriminated and looked down upon in spite of our having proved ourselves time and again..
We have been brandished as a third world country, brown skinned, developing, poor. We have been ruled by the white skinned for almost TWO centuries. We haven't even been independent that long and here we are sucking up to them, considering them God, mimicking them, jumping at security preparations when some president is to arrive, running away abroad because we can't stand it here and then we are all hurt and offended when they bloody frisk someone at an airport!
Take a moment please. What else do you really expect? An honorary medal for idolizing them??

I am not defending them at all.. I am saying do not take it personally (though that may be the intention). Your dignity is not in their hands. Reacting immaturely only makes us look stupid.
No one cares. No one is going to tell the security in charge to be careful next time or let the saree clad women go, or do not double check a Khan or Kalam.
But we still foolishly yap away like a small puppy does at an ant that bit him.

If you have the guts, prove to them you do not care. Prove to them their security checks do not define who we are. If you chose (your choice) to go there (anywhere) do not allow their ways to get to you.
We all have our petty egos but by reacting to these things we simply come out looking childish.
Let us take in our stride and move on. We have nothing to hide.. (hopefully). Only if you fear a rebuttal would you care. Are you hiding a detonator under that saree?

Why do we always look up to the west to take decisions? If we weren't so insecure we wouldn't care about a frisking at all. (Need someone else's approval all the time?)
The media definitely should know, people should learn and be aware of these discriminations, but not as a rebellion but as a mere fact.
One that we have the strength to change if we learn to believe in ourselves.
No one defines who or what we are unless we allow them to!
If you have the strength then prove to them that we simply do not care. We are 'above' such petty attempts of degradation..!
We shall walk away chin up because they didn't find anything to point a finger at us did they??

Writing Soothes Me

I started writing when I was about 7 and had anger issues, my mom told me write it all down 'It will calm you'.

So I wrote. It wasn't really calming. But when I re-read what I had written, I felt, 'Hey that sounds good!'. All anger forgotten. That did calm.
So I continued. My diary was born. But later I had urges to write about issues, things other than my own self. My 'secret' diary didn't suffice.

I started writing things I felt, the 'vivid' excuses I used to narrate.

Then I had emotions I needed delivered, but stories weren't good enough. They were too direct. So I wrote poems. And the process continued.

After a point I realized that writing did soothe me. It did calm me. More than a confrontation or a fight, writing calmed me. Even if it were just a letter or a mail to someone who I needed to say something. Good or bad. It always made me feel better when I could communicate through written words.

Something soothing and whole about that. A feeling of complete communication I suppose. Sure somethings you are better off yelling at someone, or saying it out loud (and you should). But I often found myself in situations where I wasn't satisfied with the way things go (usually when angry or frustrated) and so I wrote.

Then I began enjoying writing fiction, short stories, novels and enjoyed the feeling of how the story, situations, characters were created by me.
It gives me immense pleasure to write. But only when I want to write, what I want to write. You cannot sit with a gun at my head and make me write! It just suddenly flows and I need to either - get up in the middle of the night, run out of the bathroom, stop while eating or travelling and pen my thoughts. At least a bit, something I can go about on later.
Sometimes it's frustrating. The biggest urges come when I am studying. Supposed to be learning all that damn GK and here all I can think of is the next plot in my most recent creations!

The brain is really weird, most creative just when you don't need it to be! But now I am quite used to it, even look forward to it. I find myself typing at frantic speed, keeping up with my thoughts, the books lying beside forgotten.

Ahhh yes writing definitely soothes me!!! :D