4x featured
Just when Nicola had given up on love, a stranger called Rudra walked into her life, inviting her to join his challenge. Claiming that he could restore her faith in love with just 27 bowls of ice cream, he takes her on a metaphorical jou...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Dear Appa,
I stood under the rain for hours that day, waiting for you to come rescue me with your umbrella. With a crease of worry on your forehead, your usual smile turned into a tight line of disappointment, your long sigh as you would hand me your umbrella and choose to face the wrath of the pouring rain yourself.
All because you didn't want your silly daughter to fall sick and miss school again. All because you didn't want her to cry for her Umma in the middle of the night when she wouldn't be able to fall asleep. All because you loved her.
So I found myself standing under the same stormy sky tonight. Waiting to be seen. Waiting to be rescued. Waiting to feel loved, even if just once. But neither did the rain greet me, nor did you.
Because you're long gone, to a world far away though a certain shelf in our house sags under the weight of your heavy urn. I'm sure you're surrounded by the prettiest flowers where your soul resides, blooming until eternity to keep you company. But I think I should tell you that the flowers we grew together on our balcony have dried and died, as if to keep you company on your resting bed.
They sure were the fighters you expected them to be, for way too long. Managing to fill our overlooked balcony with colours even though they themselves were dying of thirst. Thirsty for attention, thirsty for love, thirsty for another drop of rain.
And it's not the same without you here, Appa. The heat eventually got to them and the soil where these beautiful flowers once grew soon turned barren. Please know that they gave it their all, holding on too long for the rain to pour, starting each day with anticipation as they looked towards the cloudy sky with hope for a better tomorrow. I hope you can forgive them for embracing reality when they finally closed their buds and choose to stop living on false hopes.
And I hope you can forgive me too.
Because this letter isn't really to tell you about our plants. Not sure who to blame for the way things turned out – me for not looking after them, the rain for not pouring on time when they needed it most or its own soil that turned infertile and ended up killing it altogether.
It was never about the flowers or the way they succumbed to their very end. I hope you can forgive me for hiding between the lines whilst admitting my truth to you.
For not being able to believe anymore. After all, what's a belief but a perception we build at a really innocent age? Pretty much right from the moment we first open our eyes to a whole new world, carrying them within till we breathe our last. The foundation we lay as kids on which grows the structure of our lives. But even as a child, I could never understand these complexities we weave our life around.
Because in the wheel of my life, I should have let experiences be the hands of the potter that would shape the wet soil of my beliefs and dreams. I should have known better than believing I had a chance at love. After all, it was you and Umma who convinced me that love was never made for people like us.
