From Baby Doll to Lady Love: The Endless Journey from Birth

By Komal Bhanushali

Komal has been deeply hurt by a past love.
This colours every relationship as she discovers that the love that she has lost is the only love that she desires.
Anuj is handsome, desirable and wants Komal. But he is unable to break into her heart.
For in her heart resides Ranbeer and only Ranbeer.
Anuj and Komal become fast friends, Best Friends Forever.
Anuj also finds his true love in Leeza and suddenly announces his marriage in Goa. Leeza arrives there with a group of her friends, which is a surprise, surprise includes Ranbeer.
Komal is stunned.
What happens next? Does Komal find her love again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Aug 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9789352062331

Book preview

Happiness

Prologue

I want you to read this but I am unable to tell you to do so. So here’s hoping you will find this one day.

You are the ocean in which I am floating and I drop myself in you,

The entire world is in my hand and I’ve no thought as to what to do without you.

What I know is to sleep with you. I don’t mean have sex. I mean sleep together,

Under my blanket, in my bed, with my hand on your chest and your arm around me,

With the skylight cracked, so it’s chilly and we have to cuddle closer,

No talking, just sleep, blissfully happy, silence.

If it were my choice, I’d want to be with you forever,

I have way too many chapters to have someone else narrate my existence,

This is my life, my story. Every love story is beautiful but ours my favorite.

‘From Baby Doll to Lady Love’

The endless journey from birth…

If you are reading this, you have survived your life up until this point,

You have survived traumas, heartbreak, devastation, the different phases where life stops,

And here you are, stepping into my journal, my life before your eyes,

Come step into my world, dear, it’s sure to be a surprise. You go awesome with this.

Crush My Next Mistake

Life is all about timing. Sometimes time does not move, sometimes time just slips away. Sometimes time does not heal or sometimes time is all we need. What I have felt throughout my life is that time comes but it will never come at the right time.

Gradually, I have accepted that time is our life. Live with time, chill with time. Time will either kill us or heal us. It is up to us how we deal with it.

I acknowledged it after going through the uncommon experience that my life has been and I have accepted it too. When I think back to that time, and I have pondered over the incident a thousand times, I marvel at our collective wisdom, how we slipped with time and how we acted as we did.

From the beginning till the end, I realized that sometimes the things we want the most in life and the things we believe we can reach, are actually some of the things that are farthest away.

We spend each day thinking over these small possibilities, that maybe for once some things will go according to plan.

Yet we wake up from the dream and realize that in reality, we never are, never were, and inevitably, never will reach the stars that we want to. So move on with time.

This is because there will always be a part of the story that is you. Some of us are a part of the reason you are the way that you are. You don’t get over someone, you just grow older, as do they. At least try for new moves like I did.

"Hai jina to kyun jiye marke, hai pana to kyun paye khoke,

Ae dil pyar hi karna he to kyun kare tu nafrat, khusi hai dena to kyun de dhokhe,

Zindgi sikhati he yahi to kyun chhode zindgi, kya khoya, kya paya he sub waqt ki karvat,

Aan, baan, shaan sabse banti he zindgi, zindgi sikhati he yahi to kyun chhode ye zindgi."

It was the month of December. It was extremely cold winter. The outside turned colder when the dark night fell. My bedroom windows were open. Cold air was blowing into my room.

I looked out of thewindow with a glad face. The city’s voice was hushed. In the wake of the tumult of the day gone, the starry sky offered far more promise of the spring already turned.

A cold breeze made the curtains flutter and the wind slowly blew inside to create a feeling of elation around my bedroom.

My eye spotted some beautiful views through the window, that seemed to be waiting to be seen. A dreamy picture of sylphs surrounded with their dear ones and cooling air came before my eyes – some of them draped in sarees, while others in plaited gowns. Such scenes brought a ripple of romance. I was spectacled and grey, with a kindly smile, Even I am standing in waiting.

With a smile, I looked away and mumbled, Let’s give security to them and to my room. That very second, I closed my bedroom window and went to my bed.

11 p.m. One more lonely night in my life. It was time indeed I had gone to bed. I was not feeling sleepy but I wanted to sleep.

My house was sleeping peacefully but I was awake. Why? I didn’t know. I have heard that saying, When we can’t sleep at night time, it’s because we are alive in someone else’s dreams. Was I guarding my dear one in my thoughts?

"Me with pain, heart borne though mind dare, these leftover shards of my broken troth,

Without you, next to mine, I’ve gotten nowhere, this unbreakable pill of fact, I cannot stifle down,

Inside my eyes, the blaze has died. I was once visible — but, now I am lost,

Missing the cuddle that felt like I have come home. It’s been a long and everlasting Autumn,

And there is no place to care, my hands are cold — but, my heart is colder, my favorite season, waiting for my mate."

Every single soul has loved someone. Having a crush is more dangerous than love – where one person knows that no matter that you will die for her or him, he/she will neverbe yours.

Still we love like mad; still we are ready to die. It is like someone is humiliating us. Isn’t it?

At first, we don’t even know what is happening. Our mind starts to think of that one person, and no one else.

Whenever we see, talk or are even near that special someone, those butterflies and that smile appears to disappear. Everything they say or do makes us smile. We just have that happy feeling inside now and then, again and again, and sooner or later, by then.

All of us have that one someone. No matter how we bury them in our past, their spirits still haunt us.

The worst part is realising that they actually aren’t there. The only thing left in our minds is the memories in our hearts, now and then.

It’s been three years and I still long for his scent to linger in my room, I reached out for him in the middle of the night to find nothing, aside from a half empty bed.

I screamed his name in my dreams and I saw him with me. He lit a fire inside me, one that can never be put out. That fire in me, one that will never go out.

The same thing happened to me almost three years ago, when I changed my living place with hope that once this is changed, my mind will forget too.

Maybe I was right, maybe not. As time passed, I realized that no matter how far we try to go away from our past, we can’t go beyond its shadow.

Yes, the past is like a shadow that follows us everywhere we go, wherever we live. We cannot erase it nor can we forget it. What we could do is to wait to heal with time. Someday, someone will come to replace that old world or someone will come to create a new world for us.

"Jin ke sath ji rahe the hum ye zjindgi,

Jin ke liye ki hamne din rat khuda se bandgi,

Jin ke liye sahi is jaan ne har bekhudi,

Unkee hum kya bat kare yaroon,

Mumkin nahi he phir bhi unhe bhuladoo,

Bin unke bhi hum jee sakte hai aaj unhe bhi ye dikhlado."

I was living a life where I had no fun. Where could I look for inspiration? What was that something that drove me, propelled me ahead? I had three major things to concentrate on currently. Semester end exams, my job, and my pain.

I was lost yesterday. Again, where was the direction? Where was I headed? This feeling of being lost, with no guiding lights, left me disturbed and infuriated.

It was the loneliest I have been in such a long time. It’s really bumming me out. I felt like time will not ever come for me.

Things in the past never really went my way and even if they did, they were short lived. It left me a tad bitter more and more each time.

It is hard to stay positive when we are faced with so many somber thoughts. I was so fed up with this feeling. It became incredibly overbearing at times, to the point where I just wanted to disappear.

Anyhow, I had to figure stuff out. How could I just lie down and let things go, only with the hope that these feelings would return? I tried to calm myself.

I strained to look for everything that I could possibly do to bring my peace of mind back, to bring delight and serenity back.

That did happen somehow. Talking with myself beneath an open dark sky filled with stars, I realized that I needed to relax a bit. We live and we die, and neither occurs that way that we hope.

Time did not go as I wished, my career I did not achieve as I dreamed, and the years did not move as I planned. There is a relationship we walk past, or a job offer we walk away from, or a failure of both from which we walk on.

There is a supervisor inside our minds trying fran­tically to practice the right, the wrong, the should-have, the should-have-not. It goes on, ingesting the years and the minutes until, before we realize it, those years and minutes have equaled a decade, sometimes three, sometimes four and our crisis, the retainer of our internal struggle has held a million faces.

A few we would like to forget, some we beg the cosmos to etch in the back of our eyes so that we can still see them in night-sleep, or forever-sleep, when it finally comes.

Then we are left with some of our thoughts like, What was his last name again? When I was on a business trip to Delhi once I met this guy. "I remember when I changed career how I was convinced that I’d never eat anything but Panipuri and Chat again. I stayed up all night on my 21st birthday, in a hotel room in Lonavla with my love. We just talked and then one night I didn’t. I toasted a stale glass of beer out of a plastic cup at a little league cricket game in Wankhede stadium… When I realized that after about 15 minutes, I was talking about an impromptu journey that I hadn’t planned to take. I was engaged twice but never married. Thank God! I walked away from the first two, or I’d have never found the third; sometimes when we love, we still need to leave. I’ve turned down several golden opportunities that maybe I shouldn’t have. I was holding my grandmother’s hand when she drew her last breath."

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, at the end of the year, and the end of the decade, we all have walked past, walked away from, and walked on.

These are the steps of life of which we all must take ahead without them, what we felt that we’re merely standing at the door without them.

The realization had brought me in newfound sense of composure. That composure which prevented me from acting rashly, speaking pell-mell, and reacting wildly. It helped me thrust away my insecurities, which had an unbalancing, uplifting effect.

It held up my thoughts, encouraging me about myself by pushing the levels of my confidence meter up a little.

I was still unsure how this would make me productivity and practical, but hoped it would.

Because that was all I had. It was this faith that lifted me from the dregs of insecurity into the streams of happiness.

What is the point of being alive if we didn’t at least try to do something remarkable? I realized that there is no exact definition of practical gain or productivity. The amount of self-satisfaction and happiness we gain is the only measure we have.

I thought that I would get real satisfaction if I left this place of memories, where I had spent such a beautiful life with my love.

"Barso ki kahani ka khitab hai beimani,

Har shaam ke pyar ka jurmana hai tanhai,

Zarre Zarre mein dhoondhne ka tuje keemat hai meri nadani,

Bhare maine zakhm is dil ki unsuni kahaani,

Aese chupaya tune mera aadha dil dhoondne pe bhi kisiko mila nahi,

Socho agar bina dil ke bhi hum zinda hai to is se badi kesi hogi koi deewangi."

Like a loser, I left that place and came to strange world where no one knew me. A new place, a new time, new people, and a new world for me. I was not the only person in the world who felt such awful stuff.

How far could I run and where would I go? My world had turned upside down. Finally, I did not have to run anymore. I found a strange world for me – the place where very few people stayed.

It was a small town in the South Gujarat called Vasai.

This was the only place where I dreamt my fantasy, my illusion. Sometimes it was quite amazing sometimes it was very scary too.

According to my knowledge, this beautiful town was populated mostly by Catholic people. Then the place became a hub for Gujjus, Panjabis, Marathis and others too which I don’t know.

However, for me, no one was there to care where I was. Living here was not a reason for the place. There were other factors for me being with strangers.

I wondered how biology can explain the pain I feel in my heart when I am writing about someone with whom I wanted to be.

Again, I am saying this – the same I had said earlier – the sadness, the depression or pain that one feels about love unanswered or love that is gone, or many more issues that not felt has ruined life. Nobody can understand how much it hurts until it’s experienced.

Have you ever come across a story without pain, without tears, without anybody? If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you have already know how it feels. If not, you cannot imagine it. Still perhaps by doing this, I can feel easy or I can decide what I need.

Writing is the best way to decide and to do what we want to do. I promised myself now that I will not write any more poetry for you.

"Taqdeer mein aap likhe the hamare tabhi to hum mile the, aeveyi aap meherbaan nahi hote,

Kash har cheez pe kisika name likha hota to yahaan koi gumnaam nahi hote,

Aapne agar hamara daman nahi choda hota to hum yuhi aaj badnam nahi hote,

Kash ek bar aake hamari is tadap ko dekha hota to dile qatal ka gunah aapke name nahi hote…"

The fact is, I could not fix myself. I needed other people or other places or other loves or other crushes to forget the earlier one, to relieve my pain. Lord knew!!!

What’s the truth? But truth was that I had almost died thanks to my broken heart. I went mad when I left behind.

I was living but was actually dying every day. There were a few times when I would have welcomed death. Hell, I even prayed for death. To be put out of my misery but of course, that didn’t happen.

What was going inside me? Only God knew. What I knew was that I needed change. I needed to overcome. So here, I am with new ray of hope and bliss.

At times, transformation may not be what we want. On the other hand, at one time, change is what we certainly need.

You people might think this is weird. How can a person can think of another love or crush when they have already been once bitten? Let me tell you something. We fall in love more than once. Surely, it would happen again and it would be just as amazing and extraordinary as the first time; and may be just as painful too. But it will happen.

I believe that when we miss someone, we waste so much time craving for their company, but we don’t express this.

They never will be again. People are frequently changing, growing, and becoming a better version of themselves. Every person they meet, moves them into new attitudes and mindsets, and helps contour new aspirations and hunger.

The person they were before we met them didn’t have a reason to be in our lives, until they did, and unless they become someone who would be beneficial to us again.

They possibly won’t come back into our lives. Our role is to decide if we are going to hang onto someone who is now a fantastic spirit.

The sadness of one love can be forgotten only with the happiness of another. Our pain is always a part of a plan to open our hearts to love. Love is everywhere – we just have to fall where we want to be.

What’s it really like now…? Why I needed it was because I felt that It has been a long time since I had stepped outside. It has been a long time since I had talked with anyone.

I hated voices. I hated myself. What was going on was my breath. With my broken heart all time, I kept myself locked in my room and tried to get out of my head.

However, nothing worked out. I gave up on myself too. Nothing felt real anymore. At so young an age, I had been damaged a lot.

Sometime, I felt that people don’t understand how hard it is being a girl. Sometimes I imagined that why everyone is more beautiful than I am.

I didn’t know what I was thinking or what I was complaining about. Whom was I am blaming for what? There was a war inside me and I started asking questions to get answers to my silent questions.

Time revealed to me that we are all a little broken. I started listening good music to forget everything to analysis the change I was looking for.

Thanks to harmony and nature. Harmony makes this whole thing less painful. Nature helped me to realize how I was busy to not be part of it or I was just busy not to be part of Nature.

Gradually, I started roaming outside with a song. I lost my self in music and nature and slowly, slowly, I was immersed in my strange world.

Then the music, the silent rhythm of the road, cool lyrics of chill winds, soft touch of breeze, the silent noise of air, deem the sound of leaf movement when air blew, music of new born sea waves, meaning of every dead sea wave reveled my all my questions & today I can say it became a womb healing my soul. Indeed, it was required to cover up all echoes of memory, discretion to create a new soul inside me, and there I became the change that I wanted to see in the world.

This practice drove on like a sled into a quiet barn and brought magic into my life introducing my new soul. Finally, the feeling of being covered in hay bales: a deep smell, I could breathe in.

Melody reveals the mood of people. When we happy we enjoy music and in depression we understand the lyrics of the song. We act like that song had made for ourselves.

In the end, I feel to be happy with the beet of everything that is around me.

I found myself almost okay. Now I could smile. I started talking with people. Started making friends and sometimes, I went outside with them for strolls. Standing with them chitchatting without any reason became my new hobby.

Finally, I met myself back again. Time had pain had become invisible almost. And what interesting was that I became a part of this society, the people, the festivals, the happiness, this world again in a normal way.

The joy of happiness and cheer started coming into my life too, and I had almost forgotten that I would be lucky to have all that part back or not. This happened because of the ‘Sanskriti’ of our country.

I mean culture of our country. Today I understand why