The International Writers Magazine: Lifestyles

Tittle-Tales of Time • Indrani Bhattacharyya ‘No more flirting. It’s the perfect phase to take life more seriously, right dear?’ My four years younger sister asked me with all sincerity. ‘Yet another short lived new year resolution? Huh?’ I pulled back my chair and winked at her casually.

‘I am not a teenager now, life should hold some meaningful purpose, don’t you think so?’ I sensed a grown up’s self conscious attitude while she was saying this.

Simultaneously it made me realize she wanted to be taken and treated as well, in a more matured manner than what I had been doing with her since she stepped into adolescence.

‘Well, I do feel, given the tremendous level of unpredictability life brings in, it’s always better and preferable to have a direction so that even when you are absolutely lost, you at least faintly know where would be the next anchor, therefore sailing your boat towards that point would be easier. So tell me how would you like to shape up your very own existence say after one year down the lane’? I was satisfied to put my thoughts for her in a rational way.

A mischievous smile lit up my little sister’s lips but she continued to speak, ‘No, I would like to hear that from you first. Not only because you are elder to me but you have seen and been through quite a lot. Your view is important to me, based on that I would frame up mine’.

‘Me’? I was taken aback for a moment. ‘Why not’? She prompted quietly.

The immensely touchy and vulnerable part of me constantly says ‘something I dislike most doing is ‘looking back’’ while the other sensible side counteracts stating ‘moving ahead remains incomplete without retrospection of past’. With these uncomfortable mixed feelings, I decided to open up, to throw out the excess baggage which has been deposited in last 354 days.  Probably, I got too exhausted bearing everything entirely on my own, all this while.

‘Carry on please’, my sister bent down to place her hands on my tired shoulders.

Eyes shut; I was all set to switch the steering wheel of my time machine for a backward trip.

‘You know what, this year has taught me something truly important, a lifetime lesson you can say, when you place absolute trust on someone and it gets broken, after a point of time, it doesn't hurt anymore but keeps shaking up your entire existence for a long, long time, deep within, only you know, you have survived a very, very close call, trust is such a rare and scarce resource, just imagine the huge waste,’ I paused to take a breath.

But as every bit of my hidden sorrow, unsaid words started coming out, an enraged, anguished and helpless me went on with that instantaneous, fiery flashes of emotional waves, keeping my sister as the soul witness.

Later on, I felt, this near soliloquy was extremely needed to relocate myself, to restructure, to reorient my inner core which got almost destroyed in a battle which according to me, could be pretty much termed as ‘ the infamous emotional turmoil of 2011’.

I continued to enlighten my sister about what I have known.’ Happiness gives you a momentary high like surfing in the beach, but it’s that deeply buried existence of an eternal feeling known as ‘pain’ to mankind, ultimately acts as the strongest inducer for every creative mind and that’s why I feel, too much of emotions have been wasted this year for all the wrong reasons’.

‘Do you regret the fact that your emotions which are your most precious possession got wasted for apparently no fault of yours?’ She cut me abruptly but with a valid question.

‘I don’t regret anything in my life dear. And will never do that either. There’s no regret, it’s just that I find it unacceptable.’ I desperately hoped this young kid understood at least 50% of what I meant.

I wanted to tell her that some dreams, some love are best realized when left unchased, unachieved. This longing, this sense of unfulfillment makes life more vibrant and meaningful. The road never ends, it just bends. The more we talk about them, more we indulge calculating those profit and loss associated, more dissection of certain attachments, more criticism to point out who’s right or who’s wrong, more is the wastage.

I also wanted to share a strange but true fact with her that being considered as a ‘practical soul’, what hurts me most is my sheer inability to pack up all those  ‘wasted emotions’ in a beautiful tightly closed box called ‘Memory’. This incapability reminds me, haunts me about the harsh reality, that few footsteps, certain impressions are too strong to be wiped out as mere waste. You just can’t afford to discard them as useless garbage and move on. Instead carrying them with your conscience comes handy.

I could read the unspoken query of my sister and replied with a grin. ‘I can assure you that I won’t start the New Year with a heavy heart. You know we are going global, going greener. Thankfully we are living in an age where everything can be reused, if utilized with the right intention. I would like to recycle every drop of wasted tears, wasted faith, wasted confidence, wasted love, wasted passion of 2011 to create a brighter 2012. I would resurface as a stronger, improved and more matured individual. I am a January born girl; none knows better waste management than me! I can always work on it with my talent and ideas as I have never wasted these two for example!’ I chuckled and hugged her closely in my arms.

That’s how it has been, that’s how it will be in future. With passing of each day, new ventures, maiden experiences make us redefine the term ‘waste’ and we let ourselves go with the flow and for me that’s best way to look at life, to catch up with future dreams, to survive, to enrich own self for betterment.
© indrani bhattacharyya Feb 2012
ruu924 at gmail.com

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