Is dard-e-dil ki sifarish
Ab kar de koi yahaan
Ki mill jaaye isey woh baarish
Jo bhigaa de poori tarah

(This pained heart has one thing to say
Someone please do say that,
That even she gets this rain of emotions,
And gets drenched in the same.)

D

ay 12 started off at 12 am so yet I did some crazy stuff at the beginning of the day. I made a book cover for an old ONC novella before going to sleep.

The day was quite uneventful except for the little efforts at studies that didn't go so well. And I boiled the last egg but it was rotten. Except that coffee, food, bantering, all went good.

So good that I ended uo unpublishing a very depressing story from my list.

And I hope unpublishing that story will help me forget those tough times. It's so easy to unpublished something... Only if it were that easy in real life... The memories of the bad times haunt. I still laugh thinking back to who I was....And it's funny... And satisfying... How far I have come... Out from being that teenager who felt like she was at the edge...That was silly. That was the old me.

The day went on in shared smiles, moments, memes, smiles and deepest feelings as I talked with friends over social media.

But sometimes the good days don't last good throughout. I should've known that as soon as I called the mess for food, I was signing up for trouble. Within a min of ordering, food arrived. One bunch of rotis, neatly packed and two eggs in another foil.

The warden didn't even bother to knock on my door and she went off and was back to the other side of the corridor before I reached the food packet, daintily perched on the thin ledge. She won't even come as far as my room. I don't eat roti. I pointed out the issue to her and she stared at me for a while. "Can't you eat for ome day?"

HELL NO! I'M ALLERGIC TO WHOLE WHEAT!

But I carefully put on a neutral smile and said no.

"But then you shouldn't have touched the packet you know. They won't take it back now." she announced, her voice echoing over the 5 floors drop of a space that was between us.

"But I need rice..."

"Call them."

"Tried twice. Switched off."

"I don't know —"

"You know what? You don't have to know. Thank you for all the help. I'll manage," I announced, deftly collecting the package and storming off into my room, shutting the door with a bang. The sound even shook up my inside. In my mind I was reliving Day 2 and Day 3. The stares, the hate. Quarantine is gonna end in 2 days and these people still treat us like we're untouchables, dirty.

I debated whether to boil some noodles and finally I settled down to think. My noodles were almosy done when the warden is calling me again. Dejectedly I open the door to see my rice perched at the same ledge.

"I WENT THERE AND BROUGHT IT FOR YOU," she emphasised each word to rub it on my face about how nice she was being to me.

I gritted my teeth and gave a sweet smile and said thank you. And I ate a weird mixture of rice, noodles and egg curry.

~~~~~~~~~

People — one of the mysteries that I'll never decipher. Unpredictable, moody, blind, judging, showoff, good, caring, innocent, honest, a million traits and qualities, blended in various ratios and proportions of unique combinations. The more I see, the more I get awed at the myriad diversity.
~~~~~~~~

That brings me to the song of today.

Baarish from the movie Yaariyan

Dil mera hai nasamajh kitna
Besabar ye bewkoof bada
Chahta hai kitna tujhe
.
.
(This heart is so naive,
Restless and so fooled easily
And it wants you so badly)

Yes, I'm in a romantic mood in spite of it all and when it rains all day, what more do you expect? And maybe some people really helped by listening...

Day 12  done and 2 more to go. One more if we coax them a bit and maybe we will... Tomorrow is independence day so we might as well get back the right to move around independently again. Tomorrow will tell and I've not lost yet!