The Journey of the One

The Liar She walked up and down her tiny studio apartment wondering what to do. She had told 4 different versions of stories to various people. And now she stood at a point where everything could potentially collapse. The mountain of lies she had so carefully erected. Her parents thought she was going to arrive home on Tuesday. She had told them she would pack up and that she had booked tickets. Her boyfriend thought she was leaving a couple of days later. Her latest fling was told she would be leaving on the weekend. Her friends thought she had already left, because she had resolved to spend her last few days in the city with her two lovers. In this well thought out situation, only one thing was amiss. She hadn't thought of her cellphone. She had mistakenly left it on, after deciding it best to keep it turned off for the week and use public phones. Her parents obviously called her everyday. One of her friends had mistakenly dialed her number and found it ringing. ...

There are those days when you wish time were on your side. When you couldn't wait for tomorrow to come, however hard you tried. Every second ticked like it was a year, spawning with it a rush of thoughts each warranting enough credibility and attention that it felt surreal. Yet not so real that it could transport you. Just enough so that it could capture your mind's fancies for a while. A long while. I was longing for the war to end. It had taken a toll on me slowly. At first, I tried not to notice the hurt. It started off as a little less than a battered ego and a bruise. I let go, claiming immunity with a self attested passport stamped with generous helpings of maturity and endurance. But the bruise needed tending, much less than that the ego yearned. Yet help didn't come, and the bruises started becoming deep cuts over time. A cut deep enough to reveal flesh and bone, and feel disgusted just imagining. The kind of wound that you couldn't stop thinking of once ...

The overused "social age" metaphor is a good place to start. We are all now connected to almost every single person we know well enough. And a lot of others that we don't. David McRaney argues that there are a few psychological reasons people like to have as many friends on their list as they do. Every single person now knows more about you than they ever needed to, because of only one reason. You. It's this itch that doesn't leave you, a tease that doesn't feel corrupt. The need to portray oneself as better is pervasive. We all have our own definitions of our 'better'. There are some that would describe their 'better' as more well read, more well traveled, more popular, more creative, more successful professionally, more attractive and countless other aspects of one's life. And here's your easiest chance to portray a larger than life image of yourself. Without leaving the comfort of your desk. So you do it too. It starts of...

And there it was. The end of the 'working session', signaled by the bar being declared open. The DJ gets his cue, starts off heavy. Hip-hop ranging from Flo Rida to Neyo and all the other new pop songs that constitute any club's regular commercial playlist. The crowd rushes to the bar. Orders ranging from "beer" to "mango-based mocktails" are called for, and sometimes met with quizzical looks from the bartenders. They roll their eyes and serve up the drinks. The call is for "shots" and some wise guy comes to the bar asking for 10 shots. He looks around, "Yeah, make it 10 tequila shots". The bartender tries serving up the tequila, lime and salt in the limited time available. Any more than a minute and she's sure to be quizzed on how long it'll take. An incoherent set of people are amassed from the ones standing near the bar and in close proximity to it. People down their shots in the shot circle; some go salt, tequila ...

"Lights will guide you home... And ignite your soul, And I will try... To fix you"  - Coldplay, Fix You No matter how many songs Chris Martin pens about loneliness and love, it doesn't change a thing. It makes for good music, and it provides hope. Yet hope is short lived and logic gets the better of you as soon as the song fades out. After promises of utopia comes the reality of dystopia. Of cures ranging from valium and sleeping pills to various levels of therapy.

"I think I'm not made for this", she said softly, teary eyed and shaken. "Of course, you can", I replied vehemently, "All you need to do is to stand by what you believe in and things will follow."  "No, you don't know how bad this is", she went on. This was the tipping point. I had just gone from being a casual listener to a well-wisher who cared to now being a strong proponent of a certain action. A solution.

It was a year like no other. This was a different genre of drama; pain and gain in measured material terms, nothing personal. It was a year when lists were checked, and tags were marked. Continents covered, milestones accomplished, goals re-thought and acted upon.