The Broken Mask

It was a bright day as usual when I woke up but due to closed eyes I wasn’t able to embrace it. I started doing my chores unaware of the miracle which would follow me. I brushed my teeth, combed my long hairs, arranged my bed, I had wiped my face carefully so no one would notice the tear trails on my cheeks. Sitting on the chair with my favourite mug disgusting the world, my past had left a deep scars on my heart which I thought would never heal. My past had forced me to wear an invisible mask as a barrier to this overly loud and non empathetic world. I just had made up my mind that no one is going to understand what I felt and how deep my thoughts were.

These thoughts had made me isolated to the whole society, I was misunderstood a million times for being egoistic but they only knew about the mask which covered me not my true self. I had problems with such people but soon the mud got settled with time and I didn’t even cared what they spoke behind my back and moved forward towards my career. I had become something which I once hated. Talking rough to someone wasn’t a big deal, I wouldn’t give second thought about pushing someone behind for my success.

Then the following sunset, something unexpected happened and my mother got hurt by my sharp words but at that time due to my ego I went outside and returned late night, peaking in the house and slept in my room, I thought everything would turn out to be normal but I saw a letter lying on table just besides my bed which had written on it,

“Dear,

It has been a long time I had been tolerating you and your rudeness but yesterday the things you said didn’t came out of the mouth of my daughter I used to love, she was someone else, a stranger, I can adjust with my daughter but not with a rude stranger. I am going to my friend’s home for some time.

Please don’t try to contact me for some time.”

 

After reading this, I just realised what damage I had been doing to people, the mask which I wore as a barrier has now became my identity and I was reflecting my bad past life on even those whom I truly loved.

Being alone at home, life had become very boring and depressing. I would come home daily and wept like hell. Each morning, my pillow would be stained with my tears. Then one day I saw someone whose face had a strange shine on it. His big eyes were shining like pearls and he was gathered by people who were just enjoying his presence. I wanted to know what was happening but my mask stopped me. After some days we crossed paths and I got a chance to talk to him and he reminded me of someone very familiar but I couldn’t recognize who was that person. There was some magic in him as he could feel my words not just listen to me as most would do. His calmness was something that hadn’t been seen in ages. His compassion was mesmerizing. He would look at simple things with so much delight which I couldn’t even understand.  He wasn’t that smart or handsome but whosoever once talked to him would become spellbound and just admired him in eyes for who he was. His voice wasn’t that melodious but his words made people dance. His innocent smile was just enough for someone to forget her problems. That guy holds a special place in my heart as he is someone in front of whom you could be vulnerable but he would take advantage of that, neither he would judge. He just smiles and looks at you with same glow in his eyes.He was innocent like a child yet more matured than others in seeing others. He saw eveything and everyone with crystal clarity could  guide on paths unknown. I talked to him daily and saw things from perspective I could had never imagined. He used to talk but much actually he was just a mirror who was showing me myself. In complete wonder of his words, I would return home daily.

 

Then one day while talking to him, I finally came to my senses and remembered who was he alike and I just ran from there with tears of regret in my eyes. I came home and saw the mirror but I hadn’t seen my true reflection since a long time and was too afraid to lift my eyes up. Slowly, I lifted them up and saw a girl crying in her most vulnerable form. The girl who can do anything just to save a dying bird, a girl who could see what someone actual needs and was generous enough to fulfil that. The mask had broken completely. It was my beautiful face which was there. I just forgot how beautiful I was under the ugly mask. No hiding it from the world.

The person with whom he was familiar was my older self which was lost over time. Sometimes, you just another person to bring out what was buried in you. I just wanted to cry for my lost self. No more hiding, that was me and nobody would make me bitter, I would make everyone sweet.

I came back to him and thanked me for showing me all of this but he said, “I didn’t do anything, I was just being myself, naked as I was born.”

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Blessed are those who are truly true to themselves.

You can always light someone’s life just being yourself, unmasked.

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The White Caterpillar and Black Rose

“You are beautiful” said the caterpillar to the mesmerizing black beauty. The beauty blushed and in her feminine voice replied, “You too are beautiful and it’s just a matter of time, each of us take our time to bloom.” He had a question mark on his face regarding himself and thus asked her if one day he would also be like her. She giggled and told him, “You won’t be Black like me, you would be bright like sunshine.”

Listening to this, he in his innocence, asked her if she was sorry for her colour but she just smiled and admired his heart by saying, “If it would be all white, it would had blinded you. Black and White are not opposite, deep down they had grown from the same roots.”

He started circling around her, searching something, but it was of no use. He was searching for her feet. On asking she explained him, “I don’t need to wander for anything in this world, every necessity was provided to me and in time I had realised that everything was within me.”

“What you do when in joy when you can’t even move…….?”

“I just dance in the moving wind with all my petals just feeling the beauty of this moving nature. I just enjoy as if no one is watching. I sing a song too but only for those who can listen.” He seemed satisfied.

“I always crawl. Will a day come when I will start walking?” he asked in a deep voice. “You weren’t born to walk. You were born to fly like your mother who tasted my sweet nectar once when you weren’t in this meadow” she guided him touching his head gently with her soft petal.

“What was my mother alike?” the curiosity of knowing his creator was visible in his eyes. “She was stunning as you would be in some time. When she flew towards sky, it seemed that she was going to heaven away from all earthly boundations where no one would try to catch her. Humans just ruin things for freezing a moment. Real Beauty lies in the flow. Moments are not meant to be captured but lived.”

He enquired if there was something he could eat but the only sweet thing there was just her. He was hungry and wanted the taste of black petals but the guardian thorns were at the service of the fragrancing queen. But all life of her was spent in service of others, her life was but a fine smell for others which filled every life with joy. Thus, she gave herself to the hungry creature and her death became a feast for the hungry stomach.

 

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The Wounds Bled Again

“Today, the sun shines bright in the sky.” I thought in my mind, getting proud of the good deeds I had accomplished, and “Not all humans are same in this cruel world. I have at least made some difference for the needy ones and I shall be there when somebody wants my compassion” I thought, completely lost in my own world of imagination, unaware of physical realm when suddenly I heard a boy playing alone in corner of that garden. All joy had gone when I saw who he really was.

His ball came towards me and he came rushing unto me gaily but he seemed like the grim reaper coming to take my soul to hell, he bent to grab the ball but to my surprise he smiled at me and ran away. I had goose bumps all over my body. It seemed that all my hairs had turned to needles ready to pierce through my clothes and show this world how terrified I was.

(image source-internet)

There was a time when I was the most arrogant guy anybody could imagine. Smoking, Drinking, petty fights were more of a hobby of me. I was in highschool only but all my friends were from college biker gang. Being the only child I didn’t had any restrictions, I should had. My parents loved me for who I was, those two were the only ones I cared for but they feared that if they scolded me I would had done something wrong. That was the time when a single mother with his only child came in our colony. In those summer afternoons, I used to smoke in the vacant garden of colony where along with me was just

that kid. The innocent soul was having some pleasant time with his toys when the devil in my mind started kicking and I started exhaling smoke on his face and he coughed like an asthmatic patient and cried a lot. But how unfortunate was I at that time that he couldn’t spoke. I thought that of a lottery won and started abusing that kid in numerous ways, whenever I use to found that kid out, I tortured him. Sometimes, I slapped him for no reason and laughed thereafter. Once, I spilled his schoolbag on road and he was just standing there helplessly. He informed his mother but no action was taken on me by my parents on me when his mother told my parents about so. I feels so bad when I think why my parents didn’t just slapped me and kick me out of house for destroying that poor dumb child. Lucky are those whose parents are strict to them for a teenager has to be taught lessons hardly otherwise life does that in a hard manner. If someone has done some bad in life, you can pity on him but if you ,yourself, has done that you may never forgive yourself.

After some days, both of them left and there was just I who was later taught by life what I was. Some incidents in my later life showed me what damage I had done to others, my life just gave me a ton of lemons which turned each of my tooth sour. I used to cry at night wondering about the roller coaster of my life and laugh at same time seeing the ironical ways how karma takes revenge. The damage which I had done returned to me in unexpected ways. In midst of everything, I decided to quit each of my bad habits and to help each guy I will meet and will compensate to everything I had done. It has been quite a time after life took a turning point and I transformed.

But foolish me, arrogance just hid itself in form of my good deeds ,I might have changed but I still I didn’t understood life , past just came running unto me and shown me who was I, the smile of that pure heart was more lethal for a crooked guy like me than spears in battleground. The boy was blessed ‘coz only some has the purity to forgive those who did something wrong to them and still their face shines bright for the world. That smile just tore me for what had I had done and my wounds bled again.

The Eyes Which Saw Everyone’s Secrets

 

It has been a long time since I have returned home. Having a nice boss is a bliss in today’s time. The colony gate is same as every other thing but a little rusty and this place has a smell which brings cheering memories of my childhood before my eyes. This place hasn’t changed but I have been transformed from a naughty kid to a mature adult. As I enter through the gate, children are playing as usual, old people are gossiping, aunties are doing walk but there is something strange on the central house of the colony.

There is a missing pair of eyes in the balcony of that building, they had been there from the time as far as I can remember. Those eyes saw me burning crackers in places forbidden, I can still remember the laughter in those eyes when I tried to run away and got caught by my neighbors.

Only she knows who broke Verma Uncle’s glass window in that cricket match but I was fortunate enough that she didn’t talked to anybody. Only she knows my tears when I failed in my math test and got scolded by mom. I sat in the park below her house and cried for that silly thing that don’t even matter now. That was the only peaceful place in our colony where nobody used to go.

The day I got selected in army was happiest day of my life and unexpectedly she was the person in whose presence I saw that news and danced in joy.

The thing I can’t remember is anyone visiting that shabby and shy lady for even once. It feel very odd not seeing her. On inquiring I found out that she was sick, I gathered enough courage to meet the person who had seen me in my wildest forms. I had never been in that house, nobody had, but I found her lying on her bed peacefully. I was sure that she hadn’t recognized me but to my surprise she had. I felt good in a strange manner. I first hesitated talking her, I never had, but she wasn’t, she spoke to me as we had been old friends who met after long time. There, the conversation went on old days and I was sad and happy at the same moment. I asked her if she was angry with people of this colony as they never bothered about her but there was just love in those old eyes for all. “My children and husband died at a very young age and I got all alone in this house. So, I started watching all colony members as my new big family and got along in their joy and grief but from my balcony” she said. She smiled and told me that she is familiar with everyone’s moments in this colony.

After that long talk, she closed her eyes, I thought she was resting but it didn’t took me long to realize that those eyes have been closed forever.

Next day, she was taken from her home but not even one eye wept for the eyes which had taken care of everyone. Compassion cannot be seen but those eyes were the living proof of compassion in this world. That night I cried like hell for reasons unknown. Maybe I wanted to know that old soul and discover myself in her what I truly am or maybe because this world didn’t knew what they had lost.

THE LAST NIGHT

First Night

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton