The Creatively Frustrated

(This is a lengthy story based on actual facts. The final episode is here! For Episode 8 click here . Enjoy!) Episode 9 (Part – 1) Maheen is sitting behind her desk. Her skin is very pale almost yellow. Her eyes are sunken into their sockets. She is signing some papers. The veins on the top of her hand stand out against her skin like a blue spider web. Saima, the secretary, comes in looking rather irritated. “Madam there is a mad hijra outside. He is insisting on seeing you. He says that you know him. He tells his name as Laila.” “Send him in.” Maheen replies without looking up. Saima looks surprised. She walks out of the door. “You can go in.” Saima informs Bahadur. Bahadur claps once loudly, “Fitay moun!” He mocks her. Bahadur enters Maheen’s room and sits down in front of her. He is in his usual womanly attire of shalwar kameez with the duppatta dangling on his shoulders and make up plastered on his face. “Salalekum!” He greets Maheen. “Walaikumasalam. I don’t want you using suc...

Sometimes I feel like running. Wind in my face, a blank road ahead all for myself. Even if I close my eyes, I wouldn’t bang into anything. If that helps to leave behind everything.. and if it really helps, I would like to run even faster. I would want to run till my limbs give up, the oxygen runs out and I am exhausted. Then I’ll just lay there thinking about oxygen and exhaustion and the annoying pain in my limbs because of the irritating lactic acid. Just that. And nothing more. Just that. I would want to run till the wind moving against me tries so hard to stop me and I’d still want to run faster than before. And every time that I am successful in defeating it, I would want to stop for a microsecond and look back and laugh at it. And then I would again want to run extremely fast, my speed ever increasing, that at one point I am no longer solid. Having left behind what made me substance, I’m just energy now, invisible, impervious, untouchable. You can’t know I’m there unles...

It might sound strange to you but I imagine people as play dough’s. Impressionable. Everyone leaves a mark; some deep, some leave behind just their fingerprints, curving and looping, touching your soul just enough. And with every touch the dough alters it shape, adjusting, changing and shifting. We've all had our ups and downs. We've all experienced heart ache and limitless joy. All of it being the result of someone or something that interacted with us at some point in time. I ask you just one question. Had you been where you are right now, without that tragedy that makes you weep at night? Or without that accomplishment that compels you to hold your head high? You may not be at peace with yourself now, but we have this uncanny ability of ‘Acceptance’. Yes, accepting that what has happened; happened to make you who you are. Sculpting your very thoughts, making you, YOU.  I am nearing the end of one chapter and turning over a new page of my life. It’s akin to com...

F unny thing about darkness. At first, it gives you creeps. Maybe because it steals from you the one thing that makes you feel you're in control. Your vision. It makes you lose your sense of power, of knowing your whereabouts, of whats to come.. But you eventually get used to it. You start getting familiar with it, and you realize how this is one thing in the world thats close to your skin. One thing you can be yourself with. No pretenses about to uncover, no fake smiles at the point of cracking, no holding away from the obvious, no holding back those tears that are begging for release. And after all those years, you find yourself looking forward to it. That time of the day, where you can slip into the never ending tunnel of darkness and find yourself.. Or maybe lose completely.

(This is a lengthy story based on actual facts. Episodes will be posted over a span of a few weeks.There are going to be NINE episodes in total. For Episode 7 click here . Enjoy!) Episode 8 Two years and a few months months later. Maheen is standing in a huge graveyard. She appears very thin and gaunt. She is staring at a small grave that is located under a very old Neem Tree. Her hands are cupped in front of her; the duppatta is on her head. She is praying. She closes her eyes; a tear escapes and falls on the grave. “Happy birthday my sweet girl.” She whispers. She bends and places a birthday card on the grave and a long stemmed red rose. She turns and walks away. Maheen sits behind her desk and types on her computer. She picks her phone. “Saima please come in my room.” Saima enters with a notepad in her hand. Maheen looks up. “I want the latest updates on the Transsexual AIDS project by this afternoon.” Maheen instructs, “I want to know everything from the room that was hired, ...