The Silence...

"Imran...tu aaj kal thoda chup chup sa rehta hai!" Kunal told me today while we were making the walk to uth corner for a cup of coffee well past midnight. It's not the first time in the last few months or so that someone has pointed out my silence to me and its not something I have actually tried to deny either. The brash, talkative, often hyper active Imran has become a little bit infrequent nowadadyas taken over more by the quiet, thinking and minding his own business Imran. Yes-the brash and hyper active version does surface now and then but more often that not, I find a way to remain silent or not get too involved. The reasons are just as unclear to me as it is to everybody else but mostly it is due to the fact that I find a lot less to be happy about nowadays.

It's just not to do with happiness of corse. I didn't scream before just because I was happy, I did because I wanted to-because I was and still am in general a very hyper active person. The changes don't necessarily end with the screaming either. During dinners I continue to maintain my silence, concentrating on the food than the conversation that dominates the dinner table. Is it because I am unhappy? Partly yes. Partly also because I feel detached to my surrounding nowadays. I don't feel like taking part in dinner table conversations anymore. I don't feel like going wild at parties anymore. I feel alone...lonely. Feel as if the people in my life, the people I call my friends-I just can't relate to them anymore. They are happy in their own world, in their own little happy space-and I feel as if I don't belong in that happy space anymore. It's a feeling of detatchment that I cannot describe but just seeing people celebrating, laughing, being happy-it just reminds me how lonely I am. How I don't really have anything really worth being happy about. And no-I am not talking about the materialistic things. Not jobs or a bike or the latest ipod. I am happy about all that. But unless you have people who can relate to you, who can read your mind, your expressions and notice that something is wrong by just seeing your body language-you can't really be happy. There is only so much happiness materialistic things can give you unless you have people whom you can share it with. And that's the kind of happiness that is lacking in my life.

And maybe that's why the silence has taken over the hyperactivity. Maybe that's why we all screamed and shouted at our photoshoot, then I screamed, shouted and danced again when we went for the after party to Dee Tee but half an hour into the party, my loneliness took hold of me again. I walked out of Dee Tee not feeling like being a member of the party anymore. I don't know why it really happens. I don't know why half an hour into the party I suddenly start feeling lonely. But it does-and it happens everywhere. In the past few months, I have gone to every party as excited as a bumble bee, danced wildly and screamed hoarsely for 30 mins but then I notice all the happy people, all the people who are actually truly happy and I notice again just how lonely I am. And then I just sit in a corner and watch all the happy people jump and scream and dance with anyone they can find.

I have wondered if drinking would help. Yet somehow I cannot make myself touch alcohol. Trust me-I have been tempted a good number of times to finally give into the attraction of a Red label or even an Old Monk and see what it really feels to be drunk, how good does it actually feel to be high and speak out all your frustrations without having to worry about remembering it the next day but I can't. Because God is watching. And I do truly and completely believe in the existence of God. I may not be the staunchiest of Muslims but I am a believer and I believe we will all get our just rewards form him on Judgement day. There is an after life. There is an eternity. And there is a Hell and a Heaven. Trust me on that.

I don't really like the silent me. I hate pitying myself. My life is just fine. I do have friends and lots of them, friends who really care about me. Yet somehow-I can't get over that feeling of loneliness. I am surrounded by people, people who actually are my friends, people who really do care about me, people who have helped through my troubled times yet, even in that sea of friends, I feel alone. I feel like the stranger at a party no one cares about. Somewhere-unless I find someone who can actually get rid of this loneliness for me, I feel I will become more and more silent. Day by day. Till the silence takes over completely. And that's the day I fear.