Memory Snapshots

Isn't it too much for words to capture the awesomeness of the electric pulses that criss-crosses our neurotic centre guided by the bio-chemicals that translate into beautiful paintings, amazing pieces of literature, mind blowing scientific discoveries/invention?

This electric pulse that travels from neuron to neuron which we call as thought is the origin and the ultimate of every human invention. Some of them which pulsed through me reflected wisdom and I wish to share them as snapshots of my mind.

#1: Human Joy

Man indeed takes joy out of simple things, but he thinks that he is too complex and refuses to enjoy simple moments of joy and searches for the same in complicated ways!

#2: Price Tag

It is a common thing to feel that there are people who live lives better than us or lives better lives. We tend to put up a higher price tag on others than we take credit for ourselves. The reality however is that we are the “other” person for somebody else! The true value of our lives is not in the assets we accumulate or the luxuries we can afford or the brands we shop. The merit of life lies in the dreams’ one pursues and the effort that goes into making it a reality.

#3: Boast=Boost

Smile is an emotional boost- yes indeed, a smile spreads the cheer so inexpensively and according to me if you have got the strength to smile, then you have got the strength to do anything whatsoever.

Smile is a boast-yes this is true too. There is no better way of showing off your wellness.

#4: Relationship=Respect

The sheer number and the variation of the relationship each of us holds can be comparable to the number of gods humanity believes in, I guess. But whatever the relationship is, I have come to understand that RESPECT is of paramount importance for its health to have a positive streak.

#5: Memorizing

Life’s best treasures are the memories we create by living it, which is why it is important that we live each moment as beautifully as possible.It is not to be forgotten that the memories we create are shared by the people around us. So it is up to us to get along with the beauty of people we are surrounded by and create beautiful memories with them- memorize moments and add value to the time spent.

#6: World=Classroom

Shakespeare says

 “All the world's a stage,

 And all the men and women merely players;

And I would say,

All the world’s a classroom

And all humans merely teachers and learners!

Learning is a continuous process and I remember reading it somewhere that life evaluates before teaching us lessons. But the beauty of the whole process is that “All that is important in life can only be learnt, not taught”

Ticket to Peace

Just the name of my home town on the bus made me smile like crazy. Three years of life at hostel had taught me the meaning of heaven, it is home.

The next thing I always do after I settle in my seat was to call home.

“Yes, Ma. I got a comfortable seat. I will be there by 5:30 if at all the driver did not stall the bus too much for his dinner.”

“Okay, how many of you travelling together?”

“I think the capacity of the bus is 50 plus and it should be full before we start.” I grinned knowing fully well that this was not what she was asking.

“I asked you if you have some girls from your hostel travelling with you.”

“No Ma. I am on my own.”

“But why? The risks are too much when you are all on your own. If you had people you know they might give you company and will be of help if at all things go wrong, how many times to tell you?.”

“Ma, there is no such thing as “things going wrong”, I will reach home all and whole as the day breaks tomorrow.”

“Hmmm, seems like you have grown up and not going to listen to me anymore. Be safe that is all I can say.”

“Sure, Ma. Pass the information to Appa.” The call ended.

Why do I travel alone home? She always asked me. And I always asked her back “Why should I not?” It irritated her, mostly made her afraid for me. The media gave her enough news feed of the ruthless ways girls and women were raped. But to me it was mostly the thrill and the freedom travelling alone gave me-it was an adventure in its own right, essentially an affordable one unlike trekking and skiing. There was fear, of course, but it seemed like I believed in the goodness of humans even more!

I was not the only girl though, two girls had occupied the seats beside me, heading home like myself I guessed by the big bags they were carrying which had them gasping.

As soon as they caught their breath, they lost it again! The reason this time however was a handsome looking boy crossing us. One of them commented, “Handsome boys are good for the eyes.” But they are not as good to the nose I thought, as the powerful scent he used choked me.

Then, I lost my thoughts to the bus stand buzz- the conductors’ recitals of places en-route, the shop vendors luring in customers and the hustle-bustle of the passenger population as such along with the blaring horns, the bright lights, from the shops as well as the vehicles that robbed the night time of it quiet and darkness.

Of the noise, I tuned in to the announcements that were being made through the public address system. It warned every passenger of theft hinting that any of the co-passengers could be a potential robber! Slightly feeling unsettled about it I zipped my cell phone into the innermost counters of my bag and shot a side ward glance towards the girls sitting beside me, for assurance. That is the thing about travelling alone, my safety becomes my own responsibility. My intuition, the only thing I could rely upon had me take the steely resolve of trying my best not to sleep to avoid anything undesired.

Along with the start of my battle against sleep, the bus too began its journey, inching slowly at first and then gathering momentum, not too much though.

The winds gushed in through the window with its violent whispering and spilt into directions as it washed through me. It appeared to me that the moon followed and it did so to give me a celestial company! That very thought gave me a childish strength against my growing fears about the hours of travel alone! I wondered how dry life would be if we dint have such abilities to believe in things that can never be backed up by logic!

The girls next to me had their headsets plugged to their ears, the volume extremely high so high that the headsets were not serving their purpose. I had to signal them when the conductor had come to collect the tickets. Their obsession with their smart-phones gave no room for me to start any conversation with them. So I shut my eyes, listened to the winds and got lost in the myriad of my thoughts-voices inside my head, only sometimes opening my eyes to ensure I don’t fall asleep and to keep track of things around.

The lights would go off soon, so for an apparent assurance of my own security I strained my neck to survey the entire bus. The sad news was the number of women passenger was meagre. To give myself positive affirmations and to pass time (without sleeping, of course) I studied my co-passengers. Most men-the old ones who snored(the background score) all night and I could make out that younger ones who travelled for business reasons as I had brief spells of laughter(the comedy) listening to the broken Indian-ized English in which they reported the events of the day to their bosses and others like me were travelling back home from their hostels and a few young couples-they were a regular feature and I learnt to know where the murmurs or swishes and swashes came from-it made up for the “romance” factor of the travel! I checked my watch the movi(ng) of “the travel” was to continue for 8 more hours.

For the rest of my time, I just stared out of the window into the darkness; the moon was still on my trail. Lorries drove past us, luxury buses zoomed with a violent buzz,  its passengers unaware of most of the difficulties travelling long distance in an ordinary bus would present, all these comforts in exchange for the big fare they demand. Money bridged the distance between the “wants” and the “haves”, doesn’t it?

The bus was now out of town and the lights went out, fear and ignorance wrapped me, for I felt more unguarded and more vulnerable to men who were inclined to attempt any form of physical abuse for now they had the blanket of anonymity.

For women and girls like me who could not afford to be pampered with the luxuries of posh travel, there existed several levels of exploitation, ranging from obnoxious comments, piercing glances to physical contacts that made us feel shameful and degraded.

A prayer kept ringing in my mind non-stop to all the 33 million gods (and counting) that Indians believed to save me from any mishap in this travel. The idea of “God” is one of the best antidotes to fear mankind as invented, so it eventually helped me feel better and I let sleep win the battle.

I jolted to consciousness as the bus screeched to a halt at the tea point. The conductor, the driver and the men who were in the bus got down to have tea or just to stretch and heal themselves of the cramps caused by the travel, the ladies however did not get down, it was a rule that was followed every time I was on travel. I dint well understand the reason but followed suite, though I wished I could have a chance to change my posture and relax my muscles. I just wore my spectacles and watched the people at the tea shop. It seemed like profitable business happening there as more buses halted to have tea.

Slowly my attention drifted to the construction site beside the tea point. I am sure I heard her anklets that chimed a little too much. But soon I realized I was not the only person who noticed her. The yellow sari that wrapped her contrasted the darkness of the night and it had a sensuous tinge to it as she walked exhibiting her womanly distinctions.

The “dark lady” settled on the heap of sand and inviting attention. It was odd for a “normal” lady to behave that way. Everything about her that registered in my observation re-organized in my mind, and I let out a low cry, ”O my god!”,  as it dawned on me that I was watching a sex-worker! Feeling shaken on the revelation, I thought with disgust and rage on how the woman was keen on capitalising on her sexuality, more rage built when it dawned on me as to the acute poverty that would have pushed her do this, for this cannot be anybody’s first choice. The bus started again, I saw her being accompanied by a man out of sight. The conclusion that the “one-night-sex” will buy her and maybe her kids some more days of survival helped me to subside the high emotions I felt. The engine of the bus pulled on and I tried to put out the image of the woman out of my mind. Money had the power to make people do anything for it- it was disheartening to accept that. Sleep rescued me from the inconvenience.

When my body registered a drop in the temperature I became excited for it was the signal that I will be home in less than an hour. I managed to be awake till the bus parked at the station and I was gleaming as I was to set foot on the grounds of my home town, feeling as triumphant as Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon, for it was a feat for me to land home safe, my virginity uncompromised and definitely out of danger! And I blew a “thank you” to the gods who seemed to have heard my prayers and all those decent men who had abided by the Indian pledge of “All Indians are my brothers and SISTERS…”.

I informed home of my arrival and waited for one of them to come and accompany home. There was a considerable distance between the bus stand and my home, so it took some time for my Appa to come and pick me up. Meantime, I could feel the “let-me-check-out” glances and stares from the men around. In the initial stages of my womanhood, I had thought of these glances as appreciations of the beauty that belonged to the young woman blooming into myself. Later I understood the truth of it. So I avoid any chance of inviting those, but it seemed impossible because they set their expectations at the bare minimum- womanhood, a fact that I cannot abandon or hide. Their stares were at times so intensive that a girl might as well feel naked herself. It seemed to me that the rationale behind the reduction in the layers of clothing women wore was partly because of global warming and partly because men made her feel uncomfortable whatever the case maybe (so what is the point?!). Though it was a funny observation, a sad truth was hidden in it- men have not yet learnt to respect the other half of humanity even after all these years. It was rage and a pity that their sexual interests took over their common sense so easily.

I saw my Appa waving at me and we were home in minutes. Appa was starting for work, so we had a quick conversation, a ritual for three years now.

“ How was the travel? Any problems?”

“ Thank goodness! Not a single one!” Even if I had one, I never elaborated because first place there is no much use other than he getting all worried and helpless.

“GoodJ get some sleep. Will talk to you once I get home back.”

“ SureJ”

The door slammed and it announced that he was gone to work.

“ He is gone?”

“ Yes, you heard it.”

“ You know Renu, I am telling you this considering you as my friend.”

I knew instantly that I was up to take up my peace-maker role.

“ I am your friend Ma. Go ahead.”

“It is getting really difficult to get along with your father. We will be celebrating his 50^th birthday soon and still he has not learnt how to be patient and act calm.”

“ Ma, what has age got to do with “patience”? Do you think you are the way your age indicates you to be?”

“Absolutely.”

“Fine, do you think others think about you the same way?”

“Of course.”

“Well I DON’T.”

“Why ?”(her voice was becoming sterner)

“Because you are complaining to me like a five year old child.”

“Renu, I told you I am sharing this with you as I would to my friend.”

“ It makes no difference whether you complain to your friend or to your daughter.“(I dared not to let out a chuckle)

“Yes, I now understand it fully well, it makes NO DIFFERENCE whom I share it with! Nothing is going to change. I have got to tolerate all the non-sense.”( she had gone red with anger)

“I did not mean that Ma. I just wanted to convey that age is just a number and ageing does not necessarily translate into any significant changes in one’s behaviour or character. I see it happening in me. I am 21 and you think I feel any different than I did 10 years back?”

She allowed me to go on.

“ Well, actually the difference is only marginal. You know it. As a matter of fact, I thought what a 21 year old must do when I was 10 years old, but now I am completely clueless and you know that too.”

“But Renu dear, I am not expecting your father to become an enlightened being. I just wish he learns to be more patient and not lose his temper and shout at me. I am growing old as well and I can’t be perfect and I feel so humiliated every time he makes a face even in the public. How much more compromising should you think I should be on my self-respect?”

“I understand totally. What I want you to understand is it is futile to wait for such a time when Appa is going to be a very calm and patient person. It may not happen in the next 100 years. But he loves us and we understand that and we got to love him as he is and stop waiting for him to become something he might not turn out to be!”

My mom was fighting back tears.

“ I don’t mean to say you got to compromise your self-respect. As far as I understand things, being angry and worse not being able to control it is a weakness but on the other hand to remain silent for a better ending of things is much power. And after all, you are a couple, right? He is a part of your-self, so should be a part of your self-respect as wellJ”

She smiled! Thankfully! I thought I stepped a little too much beyond my limits.

“ I am unable to comprehend if you are defending your dad or saying plain simple beautiful truths. But whatever it is, you speak so beautifully my girl! It’s just that I got really hurt when he shouted at me when we were at Revathi’s (my aunt) house-warming ceremony in front of the whole gathering. He is good at heart, I have known that always.”

“ That’s it Ma. You got the point. Come on, now get busy in preparing your unbeatable recipes so that my taste buds can be resurrected once again.”

Saying so I kissed her forehead and wiped the tears that had flooded her cheeks and she rose to get back to work.

“ Sure, papa. Go and get some sleep, you should be so tired.”

I thought of discussing this with Appa. But then considered it useless.  It was an unwritten rule that we changed to suite him and not the other way round, not that we are not used to it or it was difficult but just that that it was not funny all the time. Most men become great dads but of them many fall short of making up into good husbands how many ever marriage-years pass-our family was not an exception to this almost general rule! So it is a common thing, nothing to fuss about, saying so I deleted any further thought about it.

I occupied my bed feeling blessed and content, the world dint matter anymore, more than this piece of earth that bore my family. Before I drifted out of consciousness I felt my mom pull over a bed sheet over me, feeling over-whelmed with both emotion and exhaustion, I allowed my eyelids to shut.

The world is good after all!!

am i enough????

           Do you get the feeling that most of the things in your life is not happening the way you wanted it to or that you simply lost the power to make it happen so and feeling low about it ? I guess it happens with most of us sometime or the other in life, there is a small voice in our head asking “Am I any good at all?” The instances this could happen can be different at different times for different people. Sometimes it could be due to plain routine that cuts through us and our limitations to break it, other times it could be because of being continually faced by rejections or failures while our peers seem to flaunt their success by celebrating it every other day!

            And when the devil of this question haunts us it is one of the most sickening things that could happen!!! It seems like there is no valid reason to be alive at all, all the doors of hope shuts down for the haunted one.

Every now and then we come across motivational forwarded messages, they tell us, “every time you fall down, pick something up… and this is the secret to a beautiful life.” Well this is a nice quote, maybe true. But the problem is that the event of falling down the ladders of life drains us of all our energies to pick up anything that might restore our hope. For quite some time it may appear like a diabolic deadlock!

And what is the strategy to unlock it?

The sweetest way to get back with zeal to your life, is to meet up with people who could tell you that “you mean the world to them” or the ones who can remind you how you had bounced back the last time things went wrong and made up for everything that was considered lost (but be careful not to meet who are not having a happy time themselves, the problem is that they might boost your temporary conviction that life sucks most of the time!). Believe me, a dose of love (or a dozen of it) is the best medicine for any kind of heartbreakJ

Even if this does not work, there is a PLAN B as wellJ

ACTION is one antidote to feeling both helpless and hopeless. Do more of what you think works for you or what you should be doing.  Your thoughts will, on its own, get aligned to the positive hemisphere of life.

It is a way of life, like the tides of the sea, to rise up and fall down and then rise againJ Remember always that the brightest dawn comes after the darkest night and so most of the times it becomes important to fall down to rise up like never before! You will find this true in the story of most of the legends, to quote a few, JKR became one of the most celebrated writers when she was facing gruelling poverty, Steve Jobs founded Pixar , the most successful animation studio,after he was opted out of APPLE. When you lurk in the darkness it is important to believe that you are just a little away from finding the most unexpected glittering victory of your life!

Love life and you will find it loving you back multi-fold times!!! 

MARRIED TO LIFE

           

                                                            

A flash of my cell phone told me that it was eight in the morning and I was still in bed, which was unusual of me in any of the other times of the year. It was my holiday and it was my 10 year old favourite annual ritual of spending the vacation at Meghana’s place. She was my dearest friend for years now. It was her constant complaint that I over worked; she always called me a workaholic which I did not deny. For me working was synonymous to living. It is my pride that I chose what I should do with my time and what I chose had me working every single moment. Basically I am an educator in a primary school, a professor of psychology department in an evening college and a number of other activities and interesting people occupied my schedule every day, and every day was different than the other, I made it so. Imaginably I hardly had the time for a “do nothing” break. But it was Meghana’s concern that I did have one. She insisted every year that I pay her and her daughter a visit, where and when I myself got pampered limitlessly with the luxuries of laziness! 

So, finally when I made my decision to wake up, I tucked my blanket around little Maya, Megha’s five year old daughter, who was still asleep and got out of the room.

 “You can’t sleep longer, can you?”   It seemed like she herself woke up only a little before.

 “I have already broken my record of late mornings.”  

“O come on! It was 2 in the morning when you told me good night, baby”, we always talked late into nights, about everything and about nothing. Our talks ended for the night only when my eye lids unknowingly shuts down because it cannot keep up any longer. “I don’t want to sleep away all the time I have with you buddy.”

I settled in the balcony, where I waited for her to bring our tea. With nothing much to do I signed in to Facebook. My wall was loaded with Radhika’s pics, it seemed that she had returned from her honey moon and have shared all the pics she thought she could. Radhika is another one of my best friends recently wedded the man who embodied all her expectations (or so she thought as of now). In all her pics, they were both smiling and laughing extremely enjoying their marital bliss, there was no doubt she deserved all this. I posted my comment happily infected by her happiness with my hearty wishes for the handsome couple. Just in time Megha found me grinning big looking at my tablet.

Impulsively I showed her Radha’s photographs. Sadly Radha’s happiness did not seem to touch her. In fact she lost even the little smile she had. She just said mostly to herself “It all begins like this, hope that it does not end for her like it did for me.” I felt ashamed for not being thoughtful enough. The images brought memories of her own unsuccessful marriage which she was trying hard to forget. Regretting my action, I patted her, she gave me a sad smile, “Not everyone could get as unlucky as I did right? “ She paused. ”I know it is foolish to sulk every time I see a happy couple though it reminds me of my wounds.” I felt uncomfortable for the bad scene. Right then,  Maya came running and huddled on Megha’s lap and planted a good morning kiss on her cheek, that helped Megha recover quickly. She pulled her daughter closer, with a big grin she said “I have her now and she is all I care about, it is time that I stopped licking my wounds and let it go.” Saying so she left to prepare breakfast.

It was four complete years since Maya’s arrival into Megha’s life. Unlike a normal mother, Megha had waited for this fairy for five whole years. It was more than just struggle, to handle the event of letting go of a relationship that was held so dear for so long and suffer with the memories of the past and the wounds of the present. After her divorce, an adoption was a way through which Megha sought to bring in meaning to her life but it was not easy. Anyways , the results it brought with it was magical. Maya cured Megha of all that we were afraid could ruin Megha. So every year we made it a point to have a blast for a birthday celebration. 

The birthday went too well, she looked like an angel in the dress I bought for her. Maya was so happy with the teddy bear her mom presented her.  I teased Maya that the teddy bear was bigger than her. Megha, Maya, and all her little friends had a beautiful day. It was a BIG day for Megha and for the rest of us. After the celebration I made arrangements to return. Megha and Maya accompanied me to the bus station. Maya insisted that I stay longer. I told her I would the next time. She said, with a look of innocent sincerity in her lovely eyes that she would have grown taller than the teddy bear the next time I met her, her innocence brimming in her big eyes. Megha had tears in her eyes while she said, “I have already started to wait for the next time you are going to make it here, please take care of yourself. Love you loads.” My bus started on its route, as I waved them good bye.

Throughout the journey back, I replayed all the wonderful events of the visit, happy and content with the bag load of memories I was carrying with me. And then my thoughts turned to things at home. Mom had called me every single day. But strangely I got no calls from Rajiv, my only brother during the entire trip of two weeks. All I gathered from Amma was that his wife is not feeling well.  Though we dint call each other every other day, we managed to constantly keep in touch. I tried calling him once from Megha’s place but the call went unanswered. So I made a mental note to check on him as soon as possible.

Finally I was back home and it took me few day to sync in with my everyday schedule. Mom was happy that I returned. She missed me whenever I was away, whether it was for work or for vacation.

 I called Rajiv again.  His tone had a lot of sadness in it. He informed that Nithya had had her fourth miscarriage last week as a result of which things have got really bad at their home.

It has been three years since Rajiv has married. Rajiv and Nithya made a good couple. But things dint seem very well after they decided to have a baby.  The first time there was news that she was pregnant, all of us were happy. But the happiness did not last long. It took a lot of time to settle things into normality. So it was imaginable how bad things could be at his place.  He said he will meet me the next day.

“We got our reports analysed last week. You believe me or not since then home means hell to me”.

“What actually is the problem? Have the tests identified the problem?”

“The problem is that the reports suggest that it might be because of some uterine problems. And she cannot digest that.”

“The saddest part is in her eyes I am her rival. It makes it so difficult to understand the reality just because I have no problems as per the reports. She has stopped talking to me altogether and avoids me totally. I don’t know what I am to do!”

I could understand his feelings and hers as well. He loved her and a baby is not going to change that. As far as she is concerned, always being an achiever in everything she did, it was difficult for her to accept that things could go wrong. It was not hatred but insecurity and non-acceptance that was causing the problem

“Give her some time if that is what she wants and let her know you still love her no matter what. Things like these are very hard for a woman to digest.”

“I know. And I am trying my best but it is not easy for me too especially when she makes it seem like I am the cause for everything!”

“Things will get better. You have to be on her side.”

There was nothing more to say, for him and me. He left with a weak smile looking years older than he was. Some problems are complicated only time can provide the solution.

 I returned home, feeling sad myself for whatever happened, at times we are limited to do just that how much ever we cared for the other. But my home had different things to bother me with. It was loaded with people. One of our family friends had turned up to invite us in person for their daughter’s wedding. I personally have nothing against wedding nor the people who are to be wedded, but what makes things worse is that such invitations reminds my mom to talk me into a wedding which I have denied so far. No matter how many ever rational reasons I give her, she never stops trying and for some days there is a big void in the family till we patch up. I don’t know how long this melodrama shall continue! I am already thirty five. Is not there any age bar that disqualified people for marriage, I hope there was one, it would have brought some peace and hope for people like me.

“The wedding is at Guruvayoor Anu on the first Sunday of next month, can you come with me?”

“Ma you know I don’t attend weddings! But because it is a Sunday and it has been a long time since we went to Guruvayoor together, I think I’ll go with you. But in return you have to promise me you will not talk about my marriage or anything related to it when we get there, deal?!

“You should be a mother to understand what I am going through, answering people why I have not yet gotten my daughter married! Please tell me what to tell them and I won’t bother you forever.”

“Ma let’s not go through it all over again, please. I have given you the answer so many times. Now answer my question, is it a deal or no deal? I have got to make arrangements.”

“It is a deal. You show such generosities to me only once in a while I don’t want to waste it.”

“That is great!” I walked up to her putting my arm around her I asked, “Why are you so adamant to get me out of this home, ma?”

“You silly girl, do you think that is what is in my head?” she planted a forehead kiss and continued, “hmmm, I have failed to convince you with the reasons to get married, now all I can do is surrender it to God. Let Guruayoorappan make you understand.”

I got the tickets reserved and made arrangements for our stay there. The day of the journey arrived and we were seated, the train started.

With the rhythmic motion of the train, my mom drifted to sleep and I lost myself in the train of thoughts and memories, memories that became the meaning of my life.

Ten years back I had been to a service camp that was aimed at improvising the healthcare conditions in remote rural areas. It was my first camp and it gave me enormous wealth of experience. On the day of our return all the volunteers were provided with transportation to the nearest bus station that was 40 km away. The travel from the camp to the station lasted an hour and a quarter, the seventy five minutes that changed everything for me.

Lucky I was to get a seat by the window. All the events of the camp ran like a movie inside my head bring with it so many emotions, overwhelmed by it I had tears in my eyes. I would miss everything that had become so dear to me in the last two weeks, the people, the energy, the team spirit, the pride of being able to bring change and most of all the company of a close friend, his name was Krishna, my team leader, the most dynamic person I met. His perspective was amazing and his insights were the coolest. We were quick friends and that itself gave me such pride. As I was replaying all the wonderful things in my mind, I heard his familiar voice, “Has someone occupied the seat beside you?”

I shook my head. He crammed his baggage in the little space and settled beside me. “So we are about to begin the journey to end the camp.” He smiled. “How was it for you?”

With multitudes of emotions coursing through me, I choked and finally got out these words, ”It was too good!! I would call it fantastic!!!”

“It was too fantastic for me that I would call it LOVE!!” said he. I gave him a “I-am-not-understanding-it” look.

“You don’t understand grammatically incorrect sentences, right, my dear English teacher?” he teased.

“Well, the camp was too fantastic for me as well but more importantly I fell in love with you.”

He paused to check my reaction. I guess I was frozen. “Are you listening?”

“Yes I am trying to” I answered honestly.

He continued, “I believe that love is mutual and I am confident you share those feelings with me.”

“You are confident about what I think?!”

“Yes, the difference is that maybe you classify it as friendship which I call love! Love is sometimes too much friendship dear”

I could only remain silent dazed by all that I was hearing.

“Well you have a lifetime to figure out what you feel for me, just friendship or something more!” he seemed hurt.

“It is love”, I told it almost automatically.

He grinned his biggest grin. “Now that said and the fact that we are to return to the lives which we have built for ourselves so far and grown used to before we came here in about an hour,  how are supposed to proceed with our love? The last few days I have given it serious thought and what I am to say, is for you to remember for a lifetime in the name of our love.”

He continued, “You are the girl I love and so I don’t want to give you any false promises of being your life partner, as far as I have understood sweetheart, each one’s life is an exclusive design and even if I did become your husband for most of the time I could only bear witness to the many events that might happen in your life. There is no partnership; your life is solely copyrighted to you. But in the name of a partner I do not want to encroach your life and lay down a thousand more constraints. Life alone can be one’s partner.”

Saying so he took my hands, one in each of his, tears tickled down my cheek comprehending what he just said. “So I want you to get married to your life, its events and experiences which alone is real and only yours and let me be your best man in the wedding.” He placed one of my hands in the other and kissed it.

“Live it every moment with the pride of a woman who made the man she loved feel like a miracle and with the tremendous strength of our love. I want you to understand my darling that I am not abandoning you but doing the best I can, for the good of you, me and our love. Something of such intensity, wildness, I think should not be turned mundane by investing our lives just to understand the depths of it and letting know each other our love which is already known till we ultimately get bored of it. There is a big world out there and a short life in which we are to do so many things. Let our love and the happy things we shared be a forever motivation to get us up and moving when the storm of life hits us.”

His own emotions choked him, he could speak no more. He pulled me closer, it was blessed to place my head on his shoulders. For the next divine thirty minutes we sat there silently his tears trickling on my hand which was still in his, along with mine, relishing and etching the beautiful moments into our memories.  

 The station arrived and we alighted from the cab. Before leaving me to live my life the way he just asked me to, he held my hand and told “This moment and the part of you that loves me is forever mine. Remember, I love you always. Live your life well.”

And he left as my eyes tracked to the very end possible till he became invisible. It seemed like I could see through his head the broad grin he wore as he walked so quickly like he always did to his own world. I could sense that something has changed in him as it has changed in me, and this change is called the love we share that which is going to live with us forever in the literal sense.

I was back to my own world and for almost a year ran those moments over and over in my head, sometimes I was convinced that it was so crazy, and some other times I felt it was the most genuine and mature thing that could happen, and the latter opinion stayed with me.

Whatever it was, the best thing that happened was the new strength that I feel every moment in my life. The lives of my friends and family showed me the different stages a relationship went through, which made me realize what he said about life and its copyrights, the man I was blessed to meet rocketed me into such a space in life that I am almost untouched by trivialities, maybe I was alone in the eyes of people but I never felt lonely, the constant company of life and its extra ordinary experiences enriched every moment as I lived along.

 It is said that beauty lies in the eyes that beholds, it was as if the man I fell in love with had placed a pair of eyes within me that assured me of my beauty. At 40 when my hairs have started to grey I still feel as beautiful as ever, married to life, married with love.

SCHIZOPHRENIC

            
        It is great to watch great movies time and again especially when there not much good movies around made in the current times. So I watched the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, the biographic film made on the life of the famous Nobel Laureate John Nash ( a schizophrenic), again. Surprisingly it gave me a new perspective, a new thought.

Schizophrenia, as defined by the Encarta dictionary is “psychiatric disorder with symptoms of withdrawal into self: a severe psychiatric disorder with symptoms of emotional instability, detachment from reality, and withdrawal into the self”. Does this ring a bell? It rang for me!”           Does not the meaning sound vaguely similar to that of INDIFFERENCE? Every day we read the newspapers filled with stories of horrors. Statistics reveal rising levels of violence, poverty, rape, and all sorts of criminal activity. In our everyday lives we see undisciplined people violate rules framed for public good, we break rules and build excuses for it. To all this what do we do? Remain silent spectators? No, we have become blind to all this. We don’t care for anyone else. They are not our priorities. Some service minded people will take care of it!           Wow!!! SERVICE what a word!! What a beautifully disguised excuse! We have given up on our human feelings and hid ourselves in our own tiny worlds and ensure every day that by no means our comforts are degrading, and that is all we care about. A Gandhi, a Mother Teresa or people like them will do whatever necessary to alleviate the problems of the world. They are the ones born for service; we are born for pleasures or pressures of our daily lives.          Our definitions of reality and the reality as such do not coincide a lot of times. A lot of what we believe are what we desperately want to believe, not facts. As long as our realities remain highly flavoured by our fantasies there is no big hope for a great future. Until we take good care of TODAY, there is no reason why TOMORROW should be better.           We share a common planet and it is our common responsibility. And this responsibility demands that we all get ourselves cured of our insensitive approach to the problems around and participate in making the world better in small ways and big so that we have a good today and a better tomorrow.

Listening to life

Most of us would have stumbled over this familiar question “what is life?”, some of us would have given ourselves the familiar answers like “life is a journey”(maybe to heaven or hell, as if earth was a passing station!) or “life is a drama, we are all just actors”(who is the director and producer? Some might want to answer it is God (even for those who dint believe in one?)) And the rest of us would have just left the question as we always have more pressing things in life to attend to than getting philosophical. But it seems that few of us were adamant in finding the answer and it is such kind of people who went into deep meditations in dense forests or dangerous hilltops and finally felt that they discovered something or everything of importance. These people, at least some of them, became great spiritual masters in human civilisation. People who sought to find answers from these spiritualists rather became their worshippers than understanding what life is (as I see most of the spiritual texts are very complex and intrinsically complicated so the situation is understandable!)

Well, I too got interested in answering this question, especially because there were too many contradicting answers to another very popular question “how to lead one’s life?”. Most of us would have faced this situation so it is needless to explain further. I came to a conclusion that when the “what” part is clear the “how” part will automatically get clarified! Fortunately I was able to discover a valuable piece of wisdom in such pursuit.

Life manifests in many forms. Let us zero in on humans for now. Some are born healthy and some are wasted, some are born rich and some poor, many more variations can be observed by which we are affected either positively or negatively. Who is to be held responsible for these? But aren’t we supposed to ask a more basic question “is it necessary to hold somebody responsible?” I fully understand that we are bred in a society that glorifies the fact that to treat the effect one needs to study the cause very well, so it is clear that nothing should stop the hunt for reasons. Let’s apply the same to this problem. Many years of study of human history and civilizations have revealed that most of what humans believe and practice took form in a very natural way meaning there was no structured development and it was all so random. So obviously you can’t hold one person or one community or one event responsible for the differences and anything and everything it brings with it. This understanding gave me the following lesson, Getting obsessed with reasons is not a great idea. The COURSE is more important than the CAUSE.

So that decided we now have to understand how the course should be! Whenever this question surfaces on the horizons of mind I am reminded of one of the famous verses of the famous Longfellow from “the Psalm of life”, to be more specific let me quote the lines:

        “Lives of great men all remind us
         We can make our lives sublime,
         And, departing, leave behind us
         Footprints on the sands of time”

Today not many of us are concerned of what happens after death; in fact we are so much engrossed in squeezing countless activities into the twenty hours of the day. So our concentration is on the course which is good news! Now dealing the problem at hand of how the course should be handled. Is the course of life supposed to be a pursuit to greatness like Longfellow suggests(so that some shipwreck finds inspiration from it?)? And what does Greatness mean? Is it wealth and fame? Is that the recipe for unlimited joy in life? Simple observations are more than enough to understand that the wealthiest is not necessarily the happiest man! And fame, well the history is in itself the testimony that limelight-the instrument of fame is fickle(read carefully it is footprints on the sands not engravings on rocks!) and often not justified in the sense that the same public remembers both Abraham Lincoln who was instrumental in abolishing slavery and Adolf Hitler who spoke about (and implemented) ethnic cleansing!!! So what is the answer? Is our lives sublime only if it is comparable with that of personalities like Albert Einstein or Socrates? Well first of all we do not have first-hand evidence as to how these great people felt when they were alive. And even if it is for fun, let us assume that all of us did figure out the secret to greatness, o my god just imagine how many names to remember? It is nice to have one Albert Einstein, one Beethoven, but a million Einsteins- sounds crazy right? And our everyday life teaches us that people can touch our lives through simpler ways than complicated ones as in the technology of internal combustion engine! So it is clear the neither fame nor wealth is the criteria that suggest an ideal course of life!

Not just Albert Einstein or Beethoven had lived but so many other Toms’, Harrys’ and Dicks’ had also had lives and they were not worthless just because it was not recorded. Maybe there is no ideal way to living life. All lives are justified as they are. And the baseline to be remembered is that we are a part of a very complicated organisation/civilisation how we affect or not affect the world is out of our reach and control.

With all these analysis intact, the final conclusion that I arrived upon was that life is a set of events that occur with no particular reason, through which we navigate based on our individualistic perception (courtesy: the society we are born into), look around and you will understand any reason is born only after the event has occurred, Reasons don’t lead to events, it is events that lead to reasons. And the activities we do, may it be anything from simple ones like reading a book to composing literature or launching a satellite, they are all just expenditures of the energy we are invested with. This simplifies everything so much that, whether you were instrumental in the development of cutting edge technology or you spent all your time chatting with your girlfriend/boyfriend, both bear not much of a difference from the cosmic standpoint. There is no hierarchy of lifestyles or living!

my life my very own way

However we are bound to expend the energy we consume and that is the cosmic law, and it is blessed that we have the advantage of choice to select in what ways we are to do the same. It would be just great to celebrate the randomness of life and living.

CHEERS TO LIFE AND Living!!!

LoVe it LiVe It!!!

??????ME????????

                               

?ME?

Am I the word I am called?

Or am I to create the meaning my name has to hold?

Or am I the one people think I am?

Or am I what I want people to think of me?

Or am I the person expected to please my loved?

Or am I the one to be loved and pleased?

Or am I the one to adapt to the world as such?

Or am I  to join the crusade for change?

Or am I the voice I hear inside my head at times?

Or am I plural like the thoughts I have?

Or am I just simply “plus one” on the planet of life?

                                                                       -Sukhi