Once a liar, always a liar.

"I love you", I told her looking right into her eyes. Did I actually mean it? Did i actually love her? Yes I did. After all the lies I have told different girls I dated, this is the first time I could look into someone's eyes and tell her the truth. I was afraid. Because this is the first time I was being truthful.

If lying is an art,  I am the master of it. Wait. I was the master of it. Yeah! Past tense. I could not lie to this girl. She was the best girl I have ever met in my life. I told her i was a liar. The biggest mistake I have ever made. Why would someone believe a liar? Nobody would. Neither did she. Every time I told her that I love her,  she doubted it. She would hesitate to respond to it. Why wouldn't she? After all,  she knows me as a liar.

One fine day I opened my Whatsapp to text her but my messages were not getting delivered. Her profile picture was also not available to see. YES!  She too has done it. I me. I did not bother to check the rest of the social media. I was pretty sure this would be the case on all of them.

It did not affect me much. I had gotten used to it. But for once there was no guilt in my mind. Because whatever i had told her was the truth. Yeah!  I loved her. Wrong again. I love her. Present tense. I still do.

LIFE AWAY FROM HOME

Way back home.

Tringggggg! The doorbell just woke me up from the nap I take after my lunch. Someone was at my door on a Sunday afternoon, the only day I get to sleep peacefully after lunch. I crawled out of my bed cursing the person at my door.

As usual the lock gave up on me. I struggled hard to open it and finally it opened after a struggle of two long minutes.  As I opened the door I found two policemen at my door. I rubbed my eyes and checked again. Yeah! They were real policemen. Even though I was taken aback by the sight of their uniforms I managed to smile at them and asked them the reason for their visit.

The reason they told me almost gave me a heart attack. My parents had filed a petition at the police station about their missing son. The moment you realise that you have completely forgotten about your parents who actually sacrificed their health, wealth and time to make you what you are today, an engineer of the first degree. The moment you realise that the six figure salary you earn is the result of their sweat and blood. The moment you realise that how your siblings pushed you to work harder to get a better result from you. The moment you realise that your mom’s lap used to feel like the safest place on earth. The moment you realise that how your dad spent all his life abroad, away from his family working day in and day out to realise your dreams and give everything you wanted in life.

I had not visited my family in the last four years. Neither did I try to keep in touch with them nor did let them do so. I had completely isolated myself from my family after my father did not recommend for a job in the multinational company that he was working in. He wanted me to find a job for myself instead of going for the recommendation even though it would have helped me get a job without me trying hard. The rage in my heart made me forget everything they had done for me. I did not realise that what my dad did was for my own good. If things get very easy in life you would never find life interesting. You wouldn’t feel the pain of how many struggle to get established in life. If finding a job you really like was easy, everybody could do it. The joy you get after trying to get something is much more than what you get without trying.

I told the policemen that I will try to contact them as soon as possible but they refused to leave until I did what they wanted. They wanted me to call my parents right away. I went back in, got my phone and dialled my father’s mobile number which was always in my memory. The number I had never cared to dial in the last four years. The moment my dad picked my call I almost did burst out. He sounded very old and weak. I asked him how everything at home is. He did not answer that question. Instead he asked me how I was doing. He also asked me would I care to visit them any soon. I had no answer to that question. I kept mum.

The guilt inside me had gone to a different level now. I wanted to meet my family as soon as possible. My parents, my siblings, their children, my cousins, other relatives, friends, and every other person I knew from my hometown. I checked for tickets right away and booked a bus ticket. I got myself ready to head back home. While rushing towards the door, I tripped and fell. I banged my head on something very hard that I blacked out.

I opened my eyes after I don’t know how long but I was still on my bed. I heard somebody talking in the next room. I realised all of a sudden I was in a different house. I got up from my bed and walked across the room to check who was in the next room. On the way, I saw myself in the mirror and the sight shocked me. I was old. I checked for the calendar and it was too late. I realised my parents left the world long back and I couldn’t even make it to their funeral. The nightmare has struck me again and will go on forever. I rushed to the next room and found my wife having fun with her grandchildren. When I asked her where our son was she pointed at the door opening behind me. He stepped out and I rushed on to him and hugged him tight.

                                                                                    

PURPOSE OF LIFE

People might come up to you and say you are fat, you are dark, you are short, you are this , you are that. When you are growing up in life it actually sort of matters to people how you look. Then it matters to you because it matters to others. Why does it matter how you look?

Because if others don't like you, who will? If they don't accept you, the who will? And you fear that you mightlmight end up lonely for the rest of your life. You believe that you are not good enough. You try to change for others.

When someone tells you, "Dude! You cant do this", you actually believe that you cannot. People put you down and you start believing that you are not good enough. Then you will have 1000s of questions in your mind without any answers.

There are some things in life that are out of your control, that you cannot change. You have no other choice but to live with them. The choice you will have is either to give up or keep going.

What are you going to believe? Are you going to believe in yourself or in other's judgement on you? Are you going to believe when others say no one likes you or no one really cares about you. People might not even look you in the eyes.

To succeed in life or to meet something you have to work hard. It is not that you close your eyes and meditate and in the next moment you are in the spotlight. No. It doesn't work that way. You have to take one step at a time towards success. You can only take one step at a time no matter how big your step is. Try taking two steps at a time and you fall.

Sometimes you take a step in the wrong direction and you fall. What do you do when you fall? Get back up! But there are sometimes in life when you fall face down and you feel like you don't have the strength to get back up. What happens after the fall? You sort of isolates yourself from the rest of the world. You feel pathetic. You pretend everything is okay when it's not. You feel like the safest place on earth, your home, is no longer safe for you. You have no idea what to do next. May be you fear what others think and say about you and that scares you. That fear pushes you into a numb state. You no longer smile or laugh or have fun. The question that comes into your mind is do I have hope? You feel it is impossible to get back up.

If you try 100 times to get back up and you fail and you give up, then are you going to get back up? Absolutely not. But if you keep on trying, the chances of you getting back up is more and it is not the end as long as you don't give up. It doesn't matter how you started or how you are doing now. All that matters is how strong you finish.

When you start losing yourself, you start putting your security in temporary things. You can get drunk all night but when you are sober in the morning you will still have all the problems with a headache added to them. You can get high on drugs to escape reality, but you don't realize that once you are normal you would still be lost.

We depend on three temporary things in life ,namely alcohol, drugs and sex, to escape reality but the fact that you don't understand is that these things actually take you away from your dreams. You will reach a level that these things wouldn't satisfy you and then you start something new. You don't realise that with each new temporary satisfaction that you go in search of, you move closer to the ultimate pit with no bottom. You will keep on falling forever. You will start believing in the lies around you. You will start believing that you are not good enough.

Instead, if you keep doing those things you love doing and not try to escape reality, you will get stronger to fight through the hardships in life. If you are a girl reading this, you should realise that you are beautiful no matter what others feel about it and if you are a boy, you are the MAN.

Life is not always good. Life is not always cherries and butterflies. Everybody around you will push you down. But you can do something about it. Life is worth living when you find a purpose.

Sometimes you might have no idea about the purpose of your life. You help an old man with his luggage,  a blind person cross the road, an old woman clean her house, don't you now understand this could be the purpose of your life?

Imagine that you have a problem in your life and you want to give up. You happen to meet a person older than you who has been through the same problem that you have now and yet moving on. Wouldn't that urge you to fight through the problem? You have two choices in your life everyday. You can either tease and gossip about somebody or you can go up to them and encourage them. It can even save a life.

Can you imagine how many around you hate their life or want to shut themselves down forever? A word of encouragement or love or care can even save them. Don't you think it is the greatest purpose of life?

It doesn't matter how you look but the only thing that you should know is loving yourself first and then others can change the idea about life.

The LOST Light.

" I don't want this friendship anymore and I mean what I say ", said the girl I am in love with.

"You've figured out the stupidest way possible", said my best friend.

"You have goals to meet in your life, right?", asked me my little sister.

"Read my messages and don't give me heartache", said my new friend.

"I wanna see you successful in life. I want your dad to be proud of you. I wanna see your six children. Do whatever you want in life but never play with a girl's emotions anymore" said my ex-girlfriend.

I was shattered... devastated... wanted to end this life. But I am not a coward. I will fight through my emotions and be successful in life. 

I realised how the choices I made or preferences I gave played their part in taking the light away from my life. Whenever I took 1 step towards the wrong choice, the light moved 10 steps away.

My whatsapp status read "always the wrong one" . Yes, I preferred to choose the wrong one over the hundreds of right options I had in front of me. It has always been like that. Btech over BA, the girl I loved over my best friend, lie over the truth, bad over good, so on and so forth.

Being bad was a choice I made in life. 

Yet people miscues me as a good person. Now they will know the truth. Some have already known.

"I am a bad guy", I said, "I know that" said the girl in love with me.

story of every basketball player you dont know

The Incomplete Jumpshot.

This is the story of every Basketball player you don't know of.

I let one fly from downtown which "swished" through the net. God! I love this sound. I bet it is the only sound every Basketball player in this whole world would want to hear, after they take a shot.

I was out practising with my team one day when my eyes got caught on a lean guy watching us practise. He looked a little older than the oldest guy in my team who is 23. He wore a pair of worn out basketball sneakers.

After the drills and shooting practice we started scrimmage. I should say I was in the form of my life. I dropped 30 plus that day. I danced over my guard with combinations of hesitation moves and crossovers. My hardwork was paying off.

Next day when I reached the court for practice I found the very same guy whom I noticed the previous day in the very same spot, but with his basketball uniform on . He did not step fast to the court even though he gradually moved closer. By the time he reached us we were about to scrimmage. He asked us if he too could join us. Since we were short of a player we let him join us. Trust me, if we were even on both sides we would never have let him in.
It turned out that he was in my team. From his looks we did not expect much out of him.

He told us he plays the position of a point guard. Coincidentally we did not have a point guard in the team, so we let him "handle" the business. He left us awestruck with the very first pass he made. It was so fast and powerful that I moved 2-3 steps to undo the momentum of the pass. And yeah! My hands did ache.

With every move he made, he left us speechless. I should say he was the best ball handler I had ever met in my life. His moves were like poetry in motion. He hit more than 65% from downtown. I felt if Golden State Warriors had seen him play , Steph Curry would have been jobless by now.

His assists were such that all we had to do was lay the ball in without any contest. His defence was always the key. He made his counterpart look like fool. He sure had the talents of a true point guard. I was sure he must have played for one of the top teams in the state.

After the game I decided to get acquainted with him. I was appalled to know that he never even tried out in the district team selections. With his talents, I am pretty sure he would have made it to the Nationals. I blamed him for not trying out. He had a very sad story of lack of support from his family to share with me. Now when he did not want any support, he was well above the age limits.

I really felt bad for him. I was also glad that I had a wonderful family which supported me in every ways possible.

I met many people like him in my basketball and I felt pity for them. I wished to bring about a change to this. But I was clueless on what to do.

I am gonna work really hard to do something for those who went unnoticed.

Well... this is not a true story. But I strongly believe there are people with great talent struggling to get through. I will do whatever it takes for more talents not to go unnoticed.