The Day I Stopped Asking My Heart to Become Strong

Jab jab dard ka baadal chaya... jab ghum ka saya lehraya... jab aansoo palkon tak aaya... jab yeh tanha dil ghabraya... humne dil ko yeh samjhaya...

There was a time when I hated sad songs. I used to skip them after listening to the first few lines. I thought people who listened to such songs were unnecessarily making themselves miserable. Life was beautiful back then... or perhaps I was stupid enough to believe that it would always remain beautiful. Funny how life works... today I don't listen to songs, I live inside them. Every line feels less like poetry and more like an autobiography. Somewhere between growing older and losing people I loved... I became the very person I thought I would never become.

People often ask me whether I am happy these days. I have learned to smile before answering such questions. Human beings don't ask "How happy are you?" anymore. They simply ask "How are you?" because it is easier that way. Nobody really wants the truth. The truth takes time. The truth is uncomfortable. The truth doesn't fit inside casual conversations over tea. So I smile and reply, "I'm doing good." It has become my favourite lie over the years. Small enough to be believable... beautiful enough to not worry anyone.

I don't remember when I lost hope for the first time. I only know that I have lost it so many times now that remembering the first one doesn't matter anymore. There was a time when I genuinely believed life was negotiating with me. I thought if I became kinder... more patient... more understanding... then perhaps life would eventually become kinder too. It sounded fair, didn't it? You become good... life becomes good in return. Somewhere along the journey I realized that life doesn't work like an employment contract. It doesn't reward people according to their efforts. Sometimes bad things happen to beautiful people. Sometimes beautiful things happen to terrible people. And most of the time... life owes us absolutely nothing.

Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai... duniya mein yunhi hota hai...

I think I have hated this line for years. Not because it is wrong. Perhaps because it is painfully true. The world really is like that. People leave. Memories remain. Promises break. Relationships change. Parents grow old. Friends become strangers. Dreams expire quietly without informing us beforehand. Somewhere in another universe there exists a version of ourselves that got everything we ever prayed for. Unfortunately... we don't live in that universe.

Kabir doesn't pray anymore. Atleast not in the way he used to. There was a time when he negotiated with God every single day. There was a time when he genuinely believed that if he folded his hands tightly enough and cried sincerely enough, heaven would eventually change its mind. Today, I don't even know what I would ask Him for. Happiness feels too expensive. Love feels impossible. Peace feels temporary. So now... I mostly ask for sleep. Isn't it funny how our desires become smaller as life becomes heavier? Children pray for toys. Young people pray for success and love. Broken people pray for peaceful sleep.

The problem with sadness is not that it hurts. The problem is that it slowly begins feeling familiar. Human beings can adapt to almost anything. Happiness. Success. Failure. Loneliness. There are days when I don't even realize that I am sad anymore because sadness has become my default setting. Imagine carrying a bag on your shoulders every single day for ten years. Eventually you stop noticing its weight. It doesn't become lighter. You simply become accustomed to carrying it. That is what grief does to people. It doesn't always become smaller. Sometimes you simply become stronger than it.

Yeh jo gehre sannate hain... waqt ne sabko hi baante hain...

Perhaps that is my favourite line from the entire song. We have somehow convinced ourselves that we are suffering differently from everyone else. We believe nobody understands our pain because nobody has lived our story. While the second part is true... the first isn't. Everyone is carrying something these days. The man smiling in his office photograph is silently fighting depression. The girl posting beautiful pictures from her vacation has been crying herself to sleep for weeks. Someone's father is in the hospital. Someone's marriage is collapsing quietly. Someone has lost their purpose. Someone has lost their faith. Someone has lost the love of their life. And someone... is reading this blog at three in the morning wondering whether they have the strength to survive another difficult year.

Perhaps pain is the only religion that has followers everywhere.

I have spent months writing about Caify on this website. People often ask me whether I still love her. They ask whether I am waiting for her return. I don't know anymore. I only know that there are some people who don't leave your heart even after they have left your life. Loving them becomes less of a decision and more of a habit. It is almost like breathing. You don't consciously decide to do it every morning. It simply continues happening quietly in the background while life moves forward pretending nothing has changed.

Do you know what I fear the most these days? Not that I will never become happy again. I think I have already made peace with that possibility. What scares me is becoming incapable of recognizing happiness if it ever arrives at my doorstep again. I am terrified that one day life will finally become kind to me and I will be too tired to welcome it. Broken hearts don't only lose people. They lose their ability to trust beautiful things. After enough disappointments, miracles begin looking suspicious.

Thoda ghum hai sabka qissa... thodi dhoop hai sabka hissa...

Maybe that is the lesson I am still trying to learn. Nobody gets permanent sunshine. Nobody receives permanent darkness either. Seasons have always been more honest than human beings. They arrive when they want and they leave when they must. Perhaps sadness is no different. We spend so much time asking "Why me?" that we forget to ask "Why not me?" Why should I be exempt from suffering when suffering is one of the most universal human experiences? Why should my story contain only beautiful chapters?

No... I don't write this because I have become positive. I haven't. Positivity has become a very overrated emotion on social media these days. I am not going to tell you that everything happens for a reason or that tomorrow will definitely become beautiful. I don't know whether it will. Nobody does. What I do know is that both happiness and sadness are temporary tenants inside our hearts. Neither of them pay rent... neither of them ask for permission before arriving.

And perhaps that is enough wisdom for one lifetime.

As I write these words tonight, I realize that I no longer ask my heart to become stronger. It has fought enough battles already. Now I simply ask it to survive. That's all. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing poetic. Just survive one more difficult day. Sleep peacefully if possible. Cry if necessary. Write if it helps. And wake up tomorrow. Sometimes surviving quietly is the bravest thing a human being can do.

So if you are reading this while carrying your own invisible storms... if you have almost lost all your hopes of ever becoming happy again... if life has been unfair for longer than you think you deserve... I hope you remember one thing.

Aankh teri bekaar hi nam hai... har pal ek naya mausam hai...

You don't have to believe that beautiful things are waiting for you tomorrow.

You don't even have to become hopeful tonight.

Borrow my hope if yours has finished.

And if both of us have run out of it...

Then let's simply survive together for one more day.

After all...

Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai... duniya mein yunhi hota hai...

And maybe... just maybe...

that is enough for tonight.