Z

Z is that strange kind of a stranger for me - someone who you've known for a long time but never quite understood. I call her Z because she was like that odd letter in the English alphabet - rare, strong, firm (almost rigid) and impossible to ignore. She could be loud and sharp at times but at others she could soothe you with her gentle humming presence. 

Z could be Zoe, Zeenat or Zainab. She could be anyone she chose to be and she is everything I ever want to be. She is beautiful. Not pretty, unlike her name, which is both beautiful and pretty, but for the purposes of our story, she remains Z. The strong, rough edged, and rare voice. A singular voice that cannot be ignored or marginalized - not because she is loud and crass; but because Z, has that quality about her. She is not fussy or adamant but she would not compromise too much on her few principles in life - you can see that in her. She cannot be ignored, people remember her even after meeting her once. She jokingly says, 'people remember the best and the worst looking faces... and she knows she is not one of the best looking ones'.

But I know that is not entirely true because Z is a beautiful person. Her beauty lies not in the face though. It shines through her eyes and bears down through her smile. Her eyes wander constantly, almost as if they are searching for something. She doesn't care about appearances and she doesn't care about the world. Her people are her world and that's all that mattered. Z was full of dreams - life was never enough for her. This restless greed endeared her to me. She was always on the look out - for knowledge, for skills, for experiences - for life, in all its glory. She would race after things, demanding more from herself and from life.

She likes her people - I can tell from the way her eyes look back wistfully when she talks of friends and family. And yet, nothing quite thwarted her like people. She always had trouble understanding people around her who spent their time gingerly navigating the world by looking for the least consequential and controversial subjects to talk about. Z did not care for diplomacy or lack of opinions; she liked discussing controversial subjects and threading them to the bare-bones. She liked digging through the muck and the fluff to arrive at that one kernel of (almost always) gray truth. It left her wanting for more clarity but it was better than just accepting what someone else told her. She was led by intuition and logic but never by blind faith.

Unlike me, who had developed this patina of resigned tolerance, Z also expected the world from people. She sincerely believed that everyone had the potential for great things and that all they lacked was an opportunity. She held up men and women to a higher standard - of honesty, of fairness, of empathy, of justice, of rational and open thought.

There was this element of flickering hope that you could see in her despite the many jolts and stumbles - a hope that was often wounded but never quite destroyed. 

But despite the many disappointments, Z was not tempered by them. 

Unlike me, she didn't change her expectations or learn to be careful and cautious. Much to my puzzlement, she did not even want to. She managed to view the world untainted, with an openness and an eagerness that astounded me. He ideas were remained utopian despite her frustrations with their practicality. Me, on the other hand, had been made brutally aware of the practical world and its strange motivations. Unlike Z, I would often curl into a ball and avoid problems. I would pick the battles I wanted to fight and I would compromise. But Z, unlike me, was unwavering as she faced every battle head-on. 

Z was tough on the outside and yet she was fragile because the world left its deepest impressions on her. She could brave a storm when she needed to but it only left her ravaged and wounded. She would passionately rage through them, burn herself out and get hurt. There would be days when all she wanted was to be with herself and her few people. The world would have let her down then - yet another time. And then she would come back again with that same undying hope. 

People say it is foolish to not learn from your mistakes - sometimes, I think it is also brave. It takes courage to not paint the world in broad strokes, to be patient and open to the universe, instead of locking yourself in that cycle of fear, retrenchment and regret. 

Z is brave - unlike any one else I had ever known and she paid the price for it - every day. 

Ironically her strength lay in her vulnerability. And yet over the years, even as I have scolded her and chided her for her naiveté, I have wished for some of that. For that ability to welcome everyday in this world, like yet another unopened gift. She is not yet bitter or heart broken or cynical. She has held on to her innocence, joy and her faith in people. 

Z is that strange kind of a stranger for me. She is a part of me, I do not understand yet. 

Portents and signs...

As I stand at the store-front, looking at the colorful flowers and their fresh, spring-green leaves - hope courses through me. 

The graceful white lilies with their calming presence; the pretty pink tulips with their dainty elegance; the smiling sunflowers with their shockingly bright countenance; and tiny violets with their arresting presence - at some point they become me as I search frantically for clues from the universe. 

In a world that is constantly threatening to split apart at the seams, they are a source of comfort, reassurance and hope. They are my hope for a better future. They hold in them the seed of hope and the prospect of a brilliant bloom in a not so distant future.

Every now and then, when I find myself in need of hope, these plants and flowers transform into symbols and portents for the future. They have always meant more than they should and possibly ever could.... 

But what can you say to the deluded human mind that is desperately scouring the world for hope?

Today is one such day as I walk from one end of the store to the other, trying to think scientifically while my heart is moved by the colors. I try to weigh the pros and the cons - the clay pot for aeration vs. the aluminum pot for protection; the depth of the soil; the ease of maintenance; the temperature; the sunlight; the water, shade and the other many needs of the plant. 

I go through these many confounding factors over and over again because I desperately want this one to last.  

I NEED this one to last. I actually need it to thrive because in my deluded, searching mind, this plant is me - trying to find its place under the sun. Trying to find a firm footing in an ever changing world. It is 'me' being subject to the changing climes. It is 'me' being bombarded by showers, being left to wilt in the sun. Its 'me' in the world and all I can do to comfort me, is to protect them. 

And so, time and time again, I bring another new portent home and keep it by the windowsill. I water it - sometimes before it even needs. I bring it out into the warm sunlight out of the shadows of my apartment walls. I gaze at it longingly, hoping that this time, things would be different. I hope against all evidence that this time, this tiny new plant would manage to find its own space and that it would finally find its potential. I hope that this plant will learn to grow in the small, dark places and will learn to thrive despite the challenges.

I come back from work and search for the blooming bud or the tiny new leaf. I check on it everyday - waiting for that sign; but all I find are the drooping leaves and the withering flowers.  I find the leaf tips being burnt by the sun and the flowers being blown by the wind. I hold on to the vestiges of my hope unrelentingly; but then one day, some animal decides to come and uproot my hope in its entirety.

I come home and search for the two of them - but all I find is the empty water stained spot that was left behind by them. They did not make it - yet again. Like me, they struggled to stay together as the elements rattled their very existence.

Sometimes that is what life comes down to - searching for answers even when there clearly are none to be had. We end up looking for comfort in the strangest of places only to be disappointed... and only to hope again.

Life in hindsight...

She woke up when the world around her suddenly shifted and she found herself adrift. She was flying and finally she was free.

After being anchored firmly to her roots all her life, a sudden gust of wind had yanked her away from everything familiar and had set her free on an unknown journey.
She was in flight at long last.
At first, it was exhilarating, thrilling and intoxicating as freedom often is and as the wind alone can make you feel.
But then the gust of wind died away and with that, died the transient feeling of freedom too.

The sense of freedom she experienced a while ago was replaced by a sense of dread and fear. She felt rudderless, powerless and out of control as she plummeted rapidly to the ground, only to hit a hard place - first, of the many that she was to encounter.

It was then that the incredible loneliness of her situation hit her. She was now all alone in this big, wide world - far from everything she had known or seen. Someone will look for her and find her surely. It can't be that far away. She thought to herself and willed herself to stay calm.
"They are family, they will not abandon me", she repeated the same over and over again, as fear gripped her and loneliness crushed her.
Will she never see her people again? What is to happen of her? Will someone ever find her? 

The world was a wicked place, she soon as learned. No day was easy here as she was jostled, pushed and kicked from one hard place to another. She was often kicked around, trotted upon and bruised. She stumbled, fell, knocked herself over, but she never left the side of hope. She found comfort in the familiar. She gazed at those wings that had brought her here. There was a time when she had longed for them but now she blamed them for bringing her this far, to this dreadful, unknown place. They had abandoned her much too soon and had left her in this desolate place - but she did not lose hope. Not yet, at least.  

Even as hope fluttered in her, she found herself drowning in a warm sludge that had appeared out of nowhere. She tried to hold her peace. Surely, this is just another bad spot and this too shall pass, she thought. Maybe, this will protect her from those jagged edges, stones, rocks and hard corners. Maybe people will finally leave her alone because drowning in the sludge, she would be invisible, she thought. Her worry was that she would not be visible to the search party, if ever there was one. "Surely there must be and I can scream my lungs out when they come", she reassured herself. 

Things did become better as she was finally on firm ground again and this time, it was not too rough. She had found a comfortable spot to rest until her family came looking. She decided to save her energy by not putting up a futile fight. She quietly bided her time and waited for her rescuers - in the hope that she could scream her lungs out when it was needed of her. 

It was but a matter of time, she thought. And it was.

And before long, she witnessed a miracle. It was a sign from above, she hoped against all hope. 

On a chilly morning, as she lay there, dried and shriveled, she woke up to a gentle nudge from above. She had been touched by something pristine - cold and glass like - with rough, raggedy edges that  strangely did not quite hurt her. It had glided there near her, just as she had probably done, a long time ago. Maybe her family had finally found her and maybe this was her ticket home. 'Maybe', she thought. 

She lay there admiring the glass-like perfection in front of her, as it slowly dissolved around her. It was nothing short of a miracle - something so beautiful had disappeared into nothing - right in front of her own eyes. Hopeless as she was, she took this as a sign of good times to come. She had been looking for signs for far too long now and this seemed like a pretty good one - a secret message that was delivered to her, and her alone. 

But before she could admire and wonder at the miracle and rejoice in the possibility of a great future, she was attacked. She was pummeled by an army of these cold, pale, glass-like structures. They fell on her from all directions and buried her fast. What was a pleasant chill was now a deathly, freezing cold. These pale, glassy ghosts were hounding her. What looked angelic in isolation, seemed like a demonic presence when in such large hordes. She heard joyous screams from somewhere far above announcing a snowfall, but she saw no reason to be happy.

She fought for a long time, struggling to keep her head higher but before long, she was engulfed by this white nothingness with no possibility of an escape. She was frozen still by this unforgiving cold - colder than anything she had experienced ever before. This was the end, she thought. She was going to be frozen to death. 'This is how it is meant to be. This is the time to give up the fight', she thought as she cloaked herself in her old blanket and dug deeper than ever for that last ounce of comfort. 

She had decided to give up the fight.
The cold, harsh outside had seeped into her and had strangled the last remnants of hope too. Now, it was just a long, interminable wait till the end. She wondered if it would be painful. What happens when you die? Do you go back to the old beginning or is it THE END? Why had no one taught her all this? Why hadn't someone warned her of the risks of freedom? Of the price one has to pay.

She replayed these questions over and over again as she waited for the darkness around her to swallow her existence. She had drowned in this cold, dark, interminable silence - where nothing moved. Maybe this is what the end is like, she thought to herself. 

But then, one day, the world shifted again and the cold, dark, silence that had drowned her in entirety was rudely shattered.
The silence around her crumbled as the spaces around her rumbled and cracked. She woke up, only to find the world crashing down upon her. She was surprised that she had survived the cold death but this must be the final blow - the nail in her coffin, she thought. She held on by habit, even though there was nothing to hold onto. 

Her world was fracturing all around her and all she could do was to let go and wait. And wait she did, but unlike the last time, this was shorter. Soon, the cold, icy whiteness that had swallowed her, ceased to exist. She could suddenly feel the warmth, the way she did when she was with her family - in what seemed like eons ago.
She had survived.
That was all she could think of as she marveled at her strength. She had done the unthinkable. She had survived - alone and away from everything she knew.
She had survived - through dark, freezing, unending nights; through repeated assaults, bruises and stumbles.
She had survived.
Being alive felt like an achievement and she thought - "maybe this story will end well, after all".  I have braved so much and survived through so much - it couldn't possibly be for nothing. And so the warmth of the sun, rekindled the hope in her heart and she decided to persevere - just a little longer. 

But this time, instead of hiding herself in her cocoon and biding her time, she decided to take matters into her own hand.
Surely, after having survived death itself, she cannot give up. Perhaps she can fashion herself a new set of wings and begin afresh. And so she began the painful process of division. She divided her old blanket and fashioned herself two new brilliantly green, wings. But, she was still trapped in this hard shell that had been pressing down on her for ever so long. The shell had protected her all this time but now it was suffocating her.
It had pressed on her from all sides and had held her back, forcing her to work all day and all night, in tiny, dark, cramped quarters but now she needed to break free.
She needed to break free, but how?
She reasoned that she could possibly push through the walls by build pressure from the inside. And so she began the long, winded process of division - the only time when division actually leads to multiplication (and an increase in numbers).
Day after day, she clawed at the walls around her. She scraped through them even as she shredded her old blanket. The new green wings lay there by the side. Their brilliance gave her hope. Soon, the shredded blanket was building up pressure. It was suffocating her. She was drowning in it. There was no more room and it seemed that her plan might fail after all this effort because, no matter what she did, she couldn't break through.
She was going to be suffocated to death by her own efforts.
She was left with little to sustain her and if she didn't get out now, this would be the end. There was no other escape for her. She was hopelessly fatigued and could see no other way forward. After all this struggle, her very survival was questionable - yet again.

It was then that she felt a crack in the walls. She could see a ray of light seeping through from above and she sensed the darkness around her melt. There must be crack somewhere high above for she could now smell the air above. The suffocation inside was finally giving way. The mere possibility of a crack reenergized her as she continued to claw at the walls. She pushed at them and pounded them with all her might. She kept at it, till her entire existence became one painful bruise - sore and tired.

But at long last, finally, her efforts paid off and the walls crumbled. They slowly peeled away - as if made of nothing but scraps of paper, revealing a gloriously blue sky overhead. The world felt new, with the sun shining on her. It was the most glorious thing she had ever seen, much prettier than what she remembered from her days before at home.

During the day, she would feel the breeze caressing her gently even as the sun soothed her aching body. She would gaze at the blue sky with the patchy clouds. At night, she would be mesmerized by cool, white, shimmering light from above. She would drift off every night gazing at the big, shiny moon above. In the mornings, she would wake up to gentle drops of dew, that would roll all over her, tickling her. Life was good and things were getting better; but fear drove her to hold on tight. She put down her anchors - firmly in to the ground, because she did not want to be adrift and unmoored another time.
It had been much too long for her to hope that someone would come and find her, now, after all this time. That was but just another dream - unlikely to come true. She was destined to a life of solitude, she thought, but then, she at least had life. And she could get used to this life - even when alone. After all, she had made it thus far.

She slowly started to find her feet again. She held her head a little higher each day. Things were better, she told herself. But deep down, she was paralyzed by this gnawing fear that it may not last very long. She was worried that another strong gust of wind would uproot her anytime and flung her into the icy darkness again. But things remained pleasant and she became stronger and healthier. And then one day, she saw her home, her family and her people - just across the bend. She recognized the twin nests on the sloping branches and the giant hollow in the trunk - just as she had remembered them. She was not far away after all - she realized. Her heart rejoiced in seeing them so close-by. Her fear melted as she realized that she had survived through it all - all on her own.

She no longer felt alone, vulnerable and abandoned.
She was strong.
She was a survivor.
And in that epiphanic moment - her life made perfect sense.
Every struggle in her story was not a step backward, as it seemed then, but a step forward. The wind and the wings that she had cursed for so long had only brought her to a better place where the sun would reach her. Sometimes, one needs a little distance from the past, to come into one's own, she thought.

The bruises, rocks and the footfalls had been rough on her tiny, tender self then, but they had only helped weaken those walls. Those walls, that she thought were trapping her, had only protected her from the world outside till she was ready to face it all. The snowy glasslike demons had buried her in a dark, icy place but they had also vernalized her. They had primed her for the good times and shielded her from the bad times. The suffocation she felt later-on also seemed essential now because how else could she have pushed through those walls. Her struggles so far, suddenly made all the sense in the world and she no longer felt alone and abandoned. She gazed admiringly at her strong family up ahead and longed to be big, strong and independent. She was glad to see her hidden potential, her future form, as she went from one day to another... but she now knew that time makes a world of difference too.

She had needed the benefit of hindsight to make sense of her life so far. And now, she needed persistence, patience and time to realize her latent potential. But this realization was all she needed - to trudge through the rest of her life with hope and perhaps a little faith.
For after all, hindsight seemed to be the only perfect sight.