BRAIN BALONEY

He is Sam. He is fourteen. I think he's very cool. He plays excellent football, and has a very good haircut. He wears his jeans too low, but it comes off as adorable to me. He's also very funny.
When he first moved here, all the little girls could not stop gushing. I think he deserved it.
He is always very sweet to me, apart from those jokes at my expense. He always asks me to play hide and seek. Sometimes, I do. Sometimes, I do not. But I do think he is very nice.
One thing, I do not like. He smokes too much. But what can I do?
His girlfriend is a girl named Angel. I think thats a very funny name, but what can I do?

This is the strange nature of a blog post; there's always a 'but'.

You know how they say, 'trouble comes on an idle Tuesday afternoon, when you least expect it.' And then it did, it finally did.

He fell off the terrace yesterday. He lay there shaking for fifteen minutes, until somebody found him. I did not have the guts to go and see his spattered blood, but my friends did. Its very, very serious and they're saying there's a very dim chance. Its mostly head injury, and with that, you can never say. I cannot imagine.
T'was very, very sad yesterday, it seemed like the whole world had come out to find out whats happening. I think he will like to know, that so many people care. I do too, very much.
His parents are not even in town; nobody can even begin to imagine what they'd be going through.

I prayed for him yesterday, and I hope he makes it.

We discussed Tuesdays With Morrie in school yesterday, our teacher had told us to read it. We had a fantastic time, talking about what we liked about Morrie, and what we didn't. He was a funny character, this Morrie. That book is all about death and nothing else has gone through my mind for the past few days. Yesterday was also Tuesday.
Morrie too is also very wise, no. He tells us all these great things about death, that if you learn to die, you learn to live. I liked his ideas about emotions and family more, the Theory of Detachment. A very good scene, part of the ocean, which we enacted out in class yesterday.
Death, death, death. It just won't end. Live like you're dying, my teacher had said.

Its quite funny the way Morrie absolutely dismissed everything he didn't believe in. The young are not wise, they have very little understanding, he says. He says we will always remain deficient if we keep getting manipulated by people who tell us to buy this perfume, and you'll look pretty, and buy that jeans, and you'll look sexy. This will never complete your spiritual development.

But here, I think, Morrie is wrong. He fails to understand that these things may be a part of somebody's spiritual development. Does that sound odd? I will feel very, very good if I buy a jeans that makes me look sexy. Better than if I, say, donate that money to a charity or something, however shallow that may sound.
I will feel absolutely ecstatic, if I buy a good perfume. Maybe its Morrie's age. I don't know. But he's not understanding, that deriving pleasure out of simple things in life IS development. Fine, the other love and devotion is important too, but what is so wrong with buying good stuff for yourself? Why shouldn't people buy  the next great car if they can afford it and will be on a high for the whole following year, thanks to that car. Don't chase materialistic things, he says. I don't find anything wrong in getting pleasure out of materialistic things.
What is wrong with being number two, Morrie also says. Lets be number two. But from where will we get the incentive to grow, if we're happy being number two? Sure, don't beat yourself for being number two. But at least try for number one next time, try to see what your faults were. Try to improve. I'm nowhere NEAR number one or two, see, but I like to rant.

But there are many things Morrie says that I agree with.
"Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back"


"Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too - even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling."


Very beautiful lines, all of these. He also says this- Death: the only true emotion felt in an apathetic world.
I don't know what to say. True? At one hand, he's talking about love and all its wonders, and then he says that death is the only true emotion? Is that possible?


So many questions.


Pray for him though please?

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. A happy and healthy baby, he was born into a very privileged family, the kind that seem to lack nothing. They were a wealthy lot, not just in money, but in other things too, that mattered much more. They were kind and loving, looked out for their friends and were generally popular. The father and the mother of the little boy loved each other immensely, and why wouldn't they, since they had every reason to celebrate life as they knew it, every other day.
When their son was born, they were naturally overjoyed, and having a large family scattered across the globe, all of them came together to celebrate.

He was born a beautiful baby, and even at this age, everyone could tell he would grow up to be a handsome man. Friends and well-wishers never stopped arriving, as they envied the couple's good fortune, cooed at the baby and stared at him in wonderment.; his mother was over the moon and his father couldn't be prouder.

As he grew up, his parents never saw a day when their little son wasn't up to mischief. He caused chaos in the house, running up and down all day, disrupting the household work, breaking valuables and teasing the life out of any girl that came by his house. But yet nobody minded, because all they had to do was take one look at that adorable thing and all their anger would vanish.

As years passed by, he became an absolute charmer, as he greeted his mother's friends warmly and shook hands with his father's friends. His mother saw the mischievous glint in his eye and would just wait for the moment he would make her burst into laughter. Being an artist, she painted scores of paintings which she treasured deeply. She would display them proudly in the hall and gaze at them, content.

This family of three would go for vacations with friends, buy ridiculously expensive items and led a happy life. But by no means was this boy a brat. You see, born and brought up in the high society had taught the mother an important lesson- if you can't stay grounded, you can't stay at all.
She taught her son the most basic of values, and taught him to respect everything, from the food he ate to the people he met. She taught him to be sincere and polite, kind and humble. As he listened to his mother day after day, he turned out to be one of the most loyal, charming and genuine person one would ever have the good fortune to meet.
So even though his mischief did bring back a few complaints, his parents knew his heart was in the right place. A crack here and a joke there always did good to a person's soul, his mother used to say.
As he became a teenager, and grew taller and more handsome every day, he had a strong, independent mind of his own. He had heard and seen enough to attain a good judgement of what was right and what was wrong. He had grown up to be vary smart indeed. His mother secretly loved passing him the phone as girls giggled madly over the line and asked to speak to her son. She was very, very fond of him and they were one small happy family for a while.

Until one stormy, fateful evening and a terrible evening it was.

The mother, that evening, decided to drive to the local store to buy some groceries.
As her son reached home that evening, he was exhausted. His football coach had started rigorous training, and that boy was an exceptional player, best he had seen in a long time, he used to say.
So as he came home that evening and found his mother nowhere in sight, he just assumed that maybe she was with a friend or probably caught up somewhere. After some time, when he had taken a shower and cooled himself off, he tried calling her and found her unreachable.

He called his father, and he too, was equally puzzled. After hours of calling and checking up on the possible places where she could be, they finally approached the police.
The police, to be fair to them, carried out a thorough investigation. It was revealed that she had bought the groceries and then was never seen again. The car was left abandoned on the road. There were few passersby on the road because of the bad weather and there weren't much leads to follow.

The father used his contacts to make sure that people on the case worked to the best of their abilities. An extensive list of suspects was made and were interrogated thoroughly, but still nothing was found. It was as if she had vanished in thin air. The son got into a wild fight with some boys of another school who suggested obscene reasons explaining her mother's disappearance.

Seventeen days after that terrible evening, the mother's body was found outside her house, tossed carelessly at the edge. An autopsy of the body reported that she had been assaulted and murdered by being stabbed in back and chest and struck on the head.

Misery struck that family from then on. It was as if a cyclone had come and devastated everything they had ever known. You see, they were the perfect family across the street with the perfect house. No matter what, nothing this bad ever happened to families like these- they were the people to whom the local club first sent the invitation on special occasions, the people whose lawn smelt of freshly mown grass and house of potpourri. Murder of the mother didn't fit anywhere in the picture.

In the first initial days, the father and son were by each other's side. Friends and acquaintances mourned with them and rarely left them alone. Condolences were expressed and food and flowers arrived but the fact remained; neither of them had ever felt grief like this before and they didn't know how to deal with it.
As the weeks passed, they started to get on with their life but somehow, neither of them ever recovered from the trauma. A tragedy may bring out the best in people or the worst. For the father and the son, it brought out both.

They both worked harder than ever before, put on the bravest face possible while trying to help each other out, hoping that the killer be found. The father buried himself in work, hoping to fill the void caused by his wife's absence . Everything has a cause, he used to think. What had gone wrong here then? He couldn't for his life even begin to IMAGINE why anybody would even consider hurting her like it had been done. He completely involved himself in the investigation, worked ruthless hours but as the days passed, the case, like all others, began to lose momentum.

The son tried to gain some sense of normalcy in his life, as he became the 'dead woman's kid'. He avoided the pitying eyes, and was rash at any discussion that involved his mother. He busied himself in friends and school, sports and work, ignoring the sympathy.

Slowly and unknowingly, a distance crept between the father and the son. At first, they had been inseparable, supporting each other throughout, but the mother's absence started to gnaw at them. She had been like the glue of the family, the butter of the sandwich, keeping them together. They both stayed away from home as much as possible, avoiding each other. The father saw his wife's shadow and his incompetence in catching the killer in his son. This in turn made the son realize his father's lack of support and love at this time, making him bitter and resentful.

Time passed and the lives of the father and the son, which had always been interconnected in different ways soon took a separate turn. A time came when they would barely nod when they passed each other; they had learnt to live without each other.
The son, as he occupied himself and got on with his life, never saw one moment where he was truly content at the end of the day when he lay on the bed. He could never be the same former self he once was; it was like something inside his heart had died.

Until.

Until one beautiful, sunny, ordinary day when all that changed again.
You see, on that day, a little girl came along....

Lets meet over a coffee.

Pre-valentine's?

@German Bakery

They took a table. Ordered a coffee. Laughing, chatting.

Not a worry in the world. Except placement exams, He thought.

But He was with Her. Who cared about exams?

And suddenly, blast.

Everything's black.

@Hospital

They had to amputate His legs. She was ninety per cent burnt. Barely alive. Negligible chance of survival. He was still unconscious.

Government officials handed a cheque to His mother. His mother tore it up and threw it on his face.

He died yesterday night. She's on the brink of death.

All they wanted,

was coffee.

L, the sweet, funny L, who made me laugh as we walked through the Haunted House, who made me smile instead of scream, is alone. I've just met him a few times, but I liked him instantly. Twinkling eyes, goofy grin-how could you not like him? He had all the comforts in the world.

And now, everything's gone. In a flash.

His father passed away today. How can it be? I had seen him healthy and happy on Diwali, laughing. Not fair, this. L's 13 too young. It can't be.

My Saru went through something like this last year, a week before finals. I remember her cry as I managed to call her from school; I remember trying to say something, anything but nothing came out. I remember everything.

I am unable to get it out of my head.

I'm in two minds over going there tomorrow. Can I bear to see the tears instead of twinkle?

Can I bear to see him like I had seen my Saru?

I don't know.

I just know that I want it undone.