Play the.....PAUSE..........**

I stepped on a dry curled leaf on the ground and the sound is somehow very satisfying. The brutal crunching makes way for easy assimilation of the dead leaf into the ground. I have watched the same leaf go from the small peachy pink size to the big vibrant green one followed by the sunny yellow attire!! And let me tell you that sums up the question of life for me in just seven words: EACH FORM OF BEING IS EQUALLY BEAUTIFUL. The body lying on bed has witnessed the pink-green-yellow steps circularize ; credits to the window that allows the eyes to witness the tree, which sometimes looks like a painting in the canvas of a blue shade.  Sometimes waking up to a sight of life like that makes you happy and just for that moment everything about yourself seems enough. As usual as it may seem, to have your face washed by the morning rays of dawn, this regular thing is how life kisses you, soft and gentle. For a long time i have been kissed alive by the day and for a long time i haven't been kissing the day back with the life i was born with. Part of the reason being born as a kid and not an adult, the other part trying to make every discouraging imprint of my infancy coexist with the publisher that edits my adulthood.  The imprints express themselves, sometimes so effortlessly vivid that I become still. The kind of still that doesn't produce anything other than just being awake for distractions. I wonder how some words/behaviors remain so chained to our souls, in a world that invents a new distraction every second. You become a grown up and yet what paralyzes you still are those momentary words that defined you many many years back; words that later becomes the way you talk to yourself. The pinkish years of our lives is filled with people's expectations of us being an expert already, when all it required  was 'just hopeful backing up' for trying. 

Childhood paintings really take a long time for it to turn into a blank canvas,the one we are born with and guess what, it never turns blank....just those colors fade with time or.....well the other side of the or is recreation. The body takes it's own time to build ourselves cell by cell, why is the mind not allowed such step by step growth? It never is the child's fault if he can't paint, if you don't tell him why does one paint?..why do we need a brush and a color pallet to say what words can't or can, and that the choice lies with him how he wants himself to be expressed....you can't teach a person art without telling him why art is taught? ,why is art important? Let me give you an insight to a story i have lived till date. As skeptical as i am about my decision to personalize the writing, i also know that whatever i have written till date in any form are all personal....You never write because you like writing, you write because you can't paint, so the only colors left are the ones you create from the 26 alphabets and sew them together using the pallet of experiences you've had. 

As i said i can't paint, by that i mean i can't create an art, the one that bakes eyes. I didn't knew about my inability to paint until i was like 10 sitting in my very first art class. I still remember entering the class for the first time, it was nothing like i had ever seen before. The benches were so modern, different than the classroom ones. It was so perfectly raised in angles, it had the perfect wooden brown color, we were little but still sitting on the single chair with a single art desk felt like identity, a thing you really don't know when you are 10. The art room was quite big and full of amazing paintings, one i didn't even saw in dreams. My mind could not fathom it being made by a human hand because i was wondering how in the world someone might even imagine it in the first place. I had my first art notebook with me, along with my first paint colors and brush. For me the notebook seemed so expensive knowing the price i bought it for, but even more because of the heavenly white color of its pages. I thought even as a kid, that painting in the book would ruin its essence of being so expensive. The art teacher told us to draw a Taj Mahal  and bring it in the next class. It was my first big thing. Expensive art book+ paint colors+brush+a plastic pallet to mix and create new colors+ the freedom to paint at home because of it being homework which otherwise was a waste of time. I haven't had a moment till date in my life when i felt as luxurious as i felt with all those at 10. I drew a Taj Mahal, took lot of time on shaping  both sides of the dome equally, it was a fine outline though. If you know how Taj Mahal looks, you know that it is apparently white. When i drew it in my art book, since the pages were white the mere drawing of its outline would have considered it complete. But if you have the luxury of paint colors, how in the world you would not show logic it's place while riding on the horse of temptation. I could not decide which color would make my white Taj Mahal beautiful. I don't remember how when and why i ended up with an orange colored symbol of love in my book. I painted it all with orange color, while thinking; wow you took a risk there girl, painting it all orange. I was so excited for the class in that week, i waited eagerly like how you have butterflies when you are waiting for your date in a restaurant or meeting an old friend after a long long time. That day we went in lines to get our paintings checked. 10 year old me witnessed two things: girls who had their paintings not upto the mark were being pinched quite hurtfully in the butt by my pervy male art teacher and boys were verbally ridiculed just as bad. As I was getting closer in the line, I was filled with shock and fear of what was waiting for me. The only thing that kept my heart rate near to normal was the fact that maybe the orange TajMahal would give me an edge of being creative or maybe if I can keep a distance from him, the pinching would lose its grip sooner or maybe the God would ring the bell just in time. With all that in head I opened my book, he saw the painting and well...... that day imprinted what I said before; "I can't paint". I never painted anything after that, the love of painting or experimenting with colors left my body that day, the luxury of an expensive art book turned into the reality of it being a necessity for a subject just like all other note books. Anything I drew after that page in that notebook was for killing time in the art class; time isn't the only thing I killed though, it was also the way I treated that art book as if it meant nothing, is how I butchered it's pristine white soul. He looked at my painting and asked me many times where in the world have I seen an orange TajMahal? what in the world was I thinking while painting it that? Why did I paint it orange?... This was followed by him mocking my painting while exhibiting it to everybody in the line along with striking off my painting with his red pen. This is still not the worse. He told me to come near to him, gave me my book and shrug me off aside like how you throw a ball of paper that couldn't convince you of it's worth. Obviously I wasn't thrown like a ball of paper, it's how I felt after that class. I was surprised because what happened to everybody didn't happen to me. "I was not pinched in the butt". All through that corridor I was thinking; I was not pinched, how was I not, how did I escape, everybody whether they drew good or bad were pinched, just the pinching for the bad painters were more hurtful as compared to the pervy pinching for the good ones. As a 10 year old who was waiting in the line, I could judge that the pinching was a bad touch..... as the same 10 year old when I was mocked for my painting and shrugged aside without being pinched,it made me think that I didn't even deserved that bad touch. Such was the color of my misery. I kept asking whosoever came out of the class after me whether they were pinched. Nobody drew an orange Taj Mahal except me, nobody was spared of the pinching except me. Everything that happened that day was momentary, as a kid I forgot it all by the next hour without much thinking, back to normal fun. The fact that, that kid never dared painting again in life makes it an imprint that surpasses decades. As a kid I blame that moment, as an adult I struggle thinking otherwise. 

Moments such as the above had been plenty; sometimes in the form of fumbling maths calculations, lacking stamina for athletics, having loose motions due to extreme anxiety just before my dance performance 😂,  yaah that's grossly funny, I painted my white dress brown that day😑. Nobody from those days ever said a word that ringed a bell of me being good enough for trying. Just one different reaction to every action of me trying would have made me try more, be better. Had I known the concept of being a beginner, I would have known faith in my abilities way before I actually did, or better I wudn't still become still, because of what I heard decades back. I fumble still while calculating, the fact that I hear numbers, no matter how simple buzzes an alarm, an alarm of "no use trying". I never painted again, I never tried practising maths again, I gave in to those imprints every single time. 

But I am happy with who I have become because there are other stories too and because of them I survived. I like singing, alot, it's like a habit... While bathing, sometimes just for the mood of music and sometimes to enjoy my loneliness. But singing kind of finds its space in my day even without me trying. One of the one thing that I really think belongs to me, in whatever state I may be in, is writing. I am not a writer because I write everyday, I mean I don't fit into that definition at all. But when I fill a glass of water or squeeze a lemon or chew a roasted peanut, out of nowhere I get this urge of how would I describe that bliss of sound, the  pressure of squeezing or the dope cracking of that nut, in words that could make one feel what I felt doing all that. I don't care what metric defines my ability to write, or whether I am a writer or not but I am a writer because I know I can draw the wrinkles of a face in your mind, I can make you imagine what I cannot draw. 

I was 9 when I sang a prayer in my music class that calmed the volcanic anger of my music teacher. Before my turn he had ridiculed almost everybody for their absurd singing, so much so that I had to close my eyes for fear of his face and sang two lines with my legs shaking . When I opened my eyes, I saw immediate fall of the mountain of anger from his face, he told that's how I meant you all to sing. The bell rang. I was so relaxed that I escaped his anger, I forgot it the next hour. The fact that I still sing no matter how I sing says a lot about what that day did to my heart. 

Well there's nothing left to guess as to why I write. As a 14 year old I heard from my English tutor once; "nikki you write well, I guess". It wasn't a big compliment, he didn't say you write amazing or your writing skills are good. Just said that I write well. The fact that I was the only one among the 6-7 students who submitted their articles and got to hear that from him is why I never doubt that I can't ink an emotion if I have to. I always doubt if I am a good writer, or even a writer , but I know I can write the feelings of moon and mountains if I want to. 

Why am I so descriptive about what happened decades ago?... Why now?.. What for?...One sure thing is i am not describing a "blame". I chose to not paint again, i chose to not pay heed to that calculation again, i chose to not act on everything i failed after trying again. What i tried describing was "how is the will to try murdered", how does one "kill the will"? And when the will dies, its tombstone always reminds you of the death anniversary no matter how old you grow up to be. I have been still for a very long time, among that stillness i have created a life for myself, one i am proud of! But i realised i am pretty much haunted by the old paintings still, so much so that the GDP of my will is going haywire. The sound of a clock ticking gives me a rush of scare, thinking of how astonishingly pathetic i have been in using my time. The bulging bags of my belly gives me anxiety of how irresponsible i have been about my body. Its not even about body or time as such, not entirely, it's about my pause. I do things for the sake of doing, i lack trying, i am willing to change, i just can't find the will. My greenish years somehow look yellow to me just because i have strong memories of how i lost my pink blush while growing. Have you ever been tired of sounds?have you ever wanted to hear a vacuum?Did you ever dream of getting a clean slate of life again? Do you ever feel that you are just a seed spilled on the soil, and you are scared of what flower would you bloom into in case you dared breaking through. I have been at the mercy of my imprints for so long that i am f*cking tired of it now, tired to even use a proper language for it. In the words of Mark Twain- " In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes relief denied even to prayer".      

My intellect had been corroded for so long by words of people who splashed their own insecurities on me that i kept thinking of taking action, but  could never act for real. I don't know why having the ability to walk does not make me run for things i know i can have. I know i can paint my canvas again, but i don't know why i somehow give in to the intimidation of colors. Sometimes it's not the demons in your head that stills you, the idea of you becoming comfortable living with them is what creates a lump in the throat. 

What choice do i have? I am still paused. I know i am magical sometimes and regular the other. And that the size of my magic keeps fluctuating. But even when the size of my magic shrunk into the mass of a seed, i allow it it's dormancy, for no matter how small....it still holds its ground breaking audacious skin!. The pause isn't a stop, it's just pause; it does nothing but even then it is something, i call it frozen. 

I may be the queen of this frozen state, but i know beneath my frozen heart that one day spring would kiss me. I would feel the warmth in it's eyes, it's characteristic fragrance in my breath, i would keep my frozen hands on the shoulders of it's warm existence and my trembling feet over it's subtle foundation. I would look straight into its eyes and with a blush of seconds i would melt into it's season. One doesn't kiss one time and is done with it. As long as there is a craving for it, there is a possibility of a new frozen kingdom. And as long as i get to have a new frozen kingdom to my name, i am ready to wait to be kissed again. 

The pause is quite comfortable with me right now, it's time i learn how to play with it. I play the pause and i am ready to melt, this time for a different spring than before; THIS TIME FOR A DIFFERENT FROZEN KINGDOM!!!!