My Story!

I have a story: she has a story; we both had a story.

I met her at an unusual place – a book cafe: a calm evening with dark clouds, the popular Julius Meinl coffee on the table, Istanbul and there she was searching for the book. I was looking at her and could sense her impatience for ‘that' book. I tried to keep my eyes away from noticing her – she was beautiful. I was enjoying my coffee, trying to write something, gazing at the clouds, seeing the dark getting darker, the traffic becoming silent, birds going to their babies, and that girl still searching for ‘that' book.

"Fuck this library!" she seemed to be exhausted. Despite being so technically advanced, the library still allows you to feel that the library that existed in older times: it lets you search the books without any digital intervention. She sat right in the chair opposite mine. "I think you should keep quiet," I asked her. She didn't bother to look at me and kept her head down. "Mrs Dollaway, is it?" I tried helping her by guessing a name. "It's Dall-o-way," she looked right at me and the way her lower lips moved away from upper lips while pronouncing ‘way' at the end, I really thanked the one who invented phonetics or pronunciation thing, "and yeah, I was reading that earlier and that went missing". I smiled, "Yeah! I have Dyslexia and that's why this Dalloway thing, am sorry." She seemed to be apologetic. It's so good to lie sometimes, I have no dyslexia, but who cares. "Hey! I am really sorry, I am just searching for a book but she didn't seem to be anywhere in this library and I don't want to go anywhere else," I was listening patiently. "Things fall apart," I tried another guess. "Fuck! Yeah! That one! DO YOU HAVE THE BOOK YOU NAMED!" She was thrilled. "Yeah, I have her. Do you want her?" Her twinkling eyes were enough to convey that she knew I love books like her because I addressed books as ‘her'.

"Yeah, yeah, I would want to. I was reading that book for the past 15 days and suddenly this book too went missing somewhere," she was a book lover and her love to stories was evident.

"Coffee? This place is loved for the books and the Julius Meinl coffee?" I told her and continued, "you are new to this book cafe, right?!"
"Yeah," She didn't have any further enquiries.

We sat, drank the coffee, looked at the dark clouds, shared stories, went for a walk, got to know each other.

Isn't it strange that the girl didn't ask ‘how did I know the books she was searching for; how did I know that she was new to the cafe, why she just went for the walk with me when we met for the first time, why she told her stories to me: so many whys.'

Her name was Aahalya, 25 years old, 5 feet 4 inches, brown, black hair, Civil Engineer at Foster and Wheeler, 4 breakups, love to find herself in the stories told by others to escape the reality, not a coffee lover, avid book reader, demisexual, and beautiful lips.

I saw her the first time in the library and I found her beautiful; I just wanted to see her talk, so I took or stole the books she was reading and kept it in my bag and pretended to write every single day. I knew she didn't drink the popular coffee so I asked for it, I knew she was new to the cafe. She wasn't dumb enough to figure out that I wasn't a dyslectic by anyway, the way I was typing, by precisely telling her the books she was searching for, and then asking her for the coffee which she hasn't tasted in the book cafe from the day she has come.

She told me her stories that evening, and I told her mine. We exchanged numbers, went on a few walks, kissed each other on a starry night at the back of the library, once in the library, and I gave her the one book she wanted (obviously! after we kissed), and the other book after...making love for the first time – I know it sounds cheap.

After listening to stories of each other, taking long walks, seeing the sunsets, dating, kissing and making love for around 7 years now, it is the time to get married. I am getting married to her. A simple love story that started by just wanting to talk to her, to marrying her. This is my story or my version of the story, she would be writing her own; and you would know my name then.

Date: September 17, 2020
Venue: Sumahan on the Water
Address: Çengelköy Mh., Kuleli Cd No:43, 34684 İstanbul, Turkey
Coordinates: 41.054085, 29.051807

We make stories that we want to – nothing happens by chance. 

Peace in the Chaos

I was depressed, down, devastated, frustrated and failed. Yes, I truly was. I stopped laughing, being happy, and optimistic, but not anymore. Here's how I stumbled across peace in the mid of chaos and realized that failure, defeat, depression are not the end of life but they are very well a part of life.

My name is Aarit and I live in Bangalore, some people call it as silicon valley of India - I don't think so, and don't ask me why. I was just living a very normal life until one decision of mine turned everything into doom. I lost my job, lost my home, lost my only girlfriend, and lost my lovely bike. It all happened at the drop of a hat which didn't give me enough time to combat. I was not prepared for it, or was it my mistake that one decision of mine changed the entire scenario around me, but apart from all these things that I lost, the thing which I missed the most was the peace I had. I used to sleep well, never woke up half slept, never cringed over any of the Mondays, never sulked on my boss, never had fight with any of the colleagues, a good amount of passionate sex with my girl friend, good salary, and my bike which never ditched me anytime. I felt I was the most peaceful animal on this planet and was not aware of the fact that there is also another side of this peaceful life which was a flip side to me to which I never paid attention: the downfall side, the failure side, the depressed side and the frustrated side. So, what was that decision that took away all my happiness and peace, and why I am writing about that? Let's go back to one day of my life and see:

I work for Microsoft, and to be honest it is really a nice place to work if you want to work, apart from the fact that their phone sucks. I am a Data Scientist with no long hairs like scientist because my father still thinks that scientists are mad with long hairs; thanks to APJ Abdul Kalam's image one parent gets when they think of a scientist. I earn good and I live in my own house that I purchased few months ago with my hard earned money. I own a Ducati Scrambler and cult classic Indian Yezdi (Two Stroke - I love her). I am having a nice voluptuous girl friend with an ass to die for, good pair of assets which I never get my eyes off from, and too good in bed; she has a good face too, in case you start judging me. She works in Accenture and our Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are just food, movie, and love. Period. She loves me, her family loves me, my family loves her and of course I over her (ass).

So, what do you think about me? I am rich but not the richest, I am having house, might not be the biggest, I am having bike, might not be the fastest, I am having my girl might not be the most beautiful in the world, but I was peaceful. I was unaware of the fact that there is something called as failure, fighting, downfall, restlessness, noise,unfaithfulness to name a few. To me, world was where I was living: everything was perfect.

Here starts the story of my downfall: I thought of starting my own venture and just took a risk, and that risk costed my all the things that I mentioned above. I staked my house and took a loan: my first mistake. I started a venture without any back up or security to fall back on: my second mistake. When everything started falling apart, I was not able to accept my failure: my third mistake, because I also accepted my success which I was completely unaware of (We all accept our success without any second thought) and was too adamant to accept my defeat. Because of my third mistake I was unstable and fought with everyone including my colleagues, friends, family, girl friend which resulted in losing my peace which resulted in sleep deprivation which in turn lead to peevishness which lead to several wrong decisions: my fourth and final mistake which acted as the final nail in the coffin. I was finished: job gone, home gone, bike gone, broke up with girl friend, because of which my peace was gone. I lost peace which resulted in losing peace.

Failure is the most beautiful teacher, and if you accept failure once, no other failure can come to you again. If you don't lose your peace in failure times you will never lose peace again.

So, I told you what decision I took that ruined my life and now the time to tell you why I am writing this.

I was waiting for someone on one of the busiest roads of Bangalore and it was totally chaotic, people were fucking each other with horns as if they are pressing the mammary glands of their spouses to vent out their frustration. It was very irritating. Suddenly I saw one boy on the other side of road trying to take the dare of crossing the road without any help. The boy was ataxic, suffering from arthrogryposis, knocked knees and bowed legs. I thought in mind that it will take him centuries to cross this fucked up road where traffic is not going to stop even for a microsecond. The next moment he zoom-past me making waves with his walking style. He stopped the bloody traffic with his palm facing towards the traffic coming out from his bent elbow, and I witnessed that his courage and will to stand against failure stopped the time and it was a serene moment for me. Why he was crossing the road in such a hurry? He wanted to catch the bus which will take him to his home and he didn't want any kind of special treatment for him. He didn't want to feel that people are looking at him with feelings of helplessness. He boarded the bus on time but usually he is in time. That chaotic moment gave me the peace I had lost. So, my why is to make you realize that I am not the one who faced this kind of thing and I am also not the one who stood again, but for those who are unable to, and also those who don't want to stand.

I realized that happiness in not in staying monotonous but being ready for what could happen to you the next moment and even if you're not ready, remember, you're not lost until you think you're.

I got back to my room, felt relieved. I found my peace in the mid of a chaos. Find your peace, do not and I repeat - do not ever let it go away from you.


To make you all happy; I know most of you would have seen this video but as this blog's name is associated with the word 'happy', I thought of sharing this video with you I got on one of my messaging app and it made me smile, and hope the same with you, uploading as it is: