Acceptance

Everyday I move closer to the edge thinking this is the edge, I hear myself say this is my edge. This where I end and all else begins, only to realise the edge is much farther than it seemed yesterday.
Everyday I become stronger and weaker - only to accept there is more.. More to me, to life and everything around me.

With each passing day I have come to know - to confine and define - is not to be, for each time you confine or define - it will be challenged only to be redefined.

For things and life cannot be contained in little boxes or definitions, for what may seem to be the edge now - will not be so tomorrow. For we evolve and devolve everyday - bit by bit, little by little.

Knowing it and actually accepting are two mutually exclusive events.

This is what I now know and accept:

We change. Things change. Equations change. People change. Even the change will change.

And if you don't like the change either you change the change or you change yourself.

Bottomline, Change.

Blah blah

Talk and talk we do.
But how much do we really convey?

Rather, how much do we choose to convey?

I guess, most of the talk we do is hollow. Empty conversations just filled with words. To make us feel - like we have shared. Like we have lifted a load. And now we must feel lighter.

But do we really?
How many times have we talked and actually felt lighter?

We have filled our lives with things, to avoid this ever looming sense of hollowness, than to actually embrace it. For this sense, of hollowness is - who we really are.

We escape from ourselves - in our social lives, works lives, personal lives. We never have - "me time" or "I time". We don't spend time reflecting on our actions, thoughts and our inner demons. In fact , we spend time and essentially our lives being " cool " or appearing " cool ".

Is it the constant need of attention or acknowledgement?
Or is it just escapism?

I guess when we supposedly - "share" we erode/ deplete ourselves. And because we are in this constant need & race to supposedly "share" - we end up depleted, when we most need ourselves - for us.

Oil and water

I have a heart, that beats
that hops skips and jumps
at the very sight of you
that dances a little
when it's your time to come
that smiles
at how blissful our little life is

I have a heart that stops, some times
when the sunlight filters, through those honey coloured eyes
when the summer breeze, gently messes up your hair
when your lips part and you utter my name


I have a heart that silently weeps
for each day lived, is another day lost
for even an eternity with you would never be enough

I have a heart, that beats in me
to let me know -
how blessed, I am
and how wretched, time is.

IT

More often than I should, I think about it.
About, just how conveniently it would cease all my worries.
About, how going through just another day will not feel like a mammoth task.
About, how easy and peaceful it would be  
About, how this pain in my being would stop suddenly.
About, how much it would devastate my family.
About, how my breathing and beating would cease.
About, how nothing would matter. That all that mattered would be lost. Forever.

But, I carry the pieces my life and myself.
I stitch and sew.
I mend and bend.
And move, I do. Move to find what eludes me most.

And I do think about it, still, more often than I should.

The zip incident

Last Saturday, I got a beautiful red black dress.
It was the kind of dress that you look at - on the mannequin and just have to have.
I was so so keen to wear it and have it that I did not really care about the zip which was a little troublesome.
I thought for a dress as perfect as this I am sure I could put up with a troubling little zip.

Today, I decided to wear it. I put out my best pair of black leggings, matched my shoes, jacket, even decided on the perfume  - the works. After all, it was "the" dress.

After scrubbing and shining myself I slipped in the dress. I was so excited, then, started the struggle with the seemingly trivial zip problem. It moved a few inches and then it was stuck. I could not pull it up. I could not pull it down. It was stuck. I could not get out of the dress with out actually hurting myself or the dress. And the clock is ticking.

I then try waxing the zip. Tried the lead on the zip. It just would not budge.

My mind is racing with thoughts of the things lined up at work. I m very aware of the tick tock of the clock. And the stupid zip would just not budge. It was like the zip wanted to just get back at me. My mind was like:


                Panic. Panic. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
                Why did Pallav (my husband) had to leave early today?
                Oh Zip please come up. Up. Up. Up.
             
After struggling with it over 20 mins, I decided to just wear the jacket and head to work and get some help there, with the stupid zip.

I sit in the car and fire it up and I am like - Oh god what if I have an accident how will I explain the zip? What am I going to tell my manager - who is a man - oh I am sorry for being late my zip was stuck?!

I got to work safely, got help from a very kind colleague to do it up for me.

Moral of the story : Details are just as important as the package.

Life. Huh?

So I have not written a long long time and now I am so full - not just with things I want to write about but I am so done and full with life. I feel and think everything is overrated.

This post is not intended to gather your attention or encourage you to empathize or sympathize with me. Actually, in my current state of existence I don't even know why or what I want to achieve out of writing this. But, I do feel this unstoppable urge to just pour my mind in words. And I do know that writing this makes me vulnerable.

For the last few years I feel everything has been happening in a daze. Like, I am in an express train - passing trees, buildings, people's faces seem to stretch and suddenly disappear, everything is just passing me by, like life is passing by and taking a tiny part of my soul with it each time. Like my essence is getting lost. I can't seem to get a grip on it. I don't know where the train is headed to. I don't know who is driving it. Like a fool, I am just sitting in the train and watching everything go by, wanting it to stop, wanting to scream to make it stop. Sitting in the train I make plans of making it stop, of appreciating what I see, of being a part of the journey. I try to soak it in, to make sense of it and I fail miserably. My insides churn not with physical pain but with sheer enormity of it all. All I want is the train to stop. To let me get off it. To let me stand and stare.


But, it chugs along. Like I don't exist. I don't matter.
Like I am just one of those thousands of leaves that are shed by trees each autumn. And when the new season will come I will be forgotten. Not that it scares me, the thought of being forgotten what scares me is not being a part of some thing. Of not belonging.

May be I am just messed up. Totally messed up and entangled within the complex strands of life. The more I try to untangle myself, the more tangled I become. Which freaks me out even more. So I sit in the tangled strands of my messed up life, hoping, yes still, hoping the train would somehow stop and this web of life would make sense.

Enough

Jack Ass.

Punching away keys in the hope to rise the ranks in the food chain of the corporate world my mind (as always) was wandering. This time to not exactly what you might describe as a happy place. In my mind I went through the faces of all the people who have come into my life and left me. Just left. Some times they brought their baggage along and I like a host in my culture (Atithi Devo Bhava - meaning Guest is God) welcomed them.
Made them feel at ease. Offered food and shelter and warmth for the rainy days and chilly winter nights. They felt at ease or so it seemed at that point.

And then they left. Leaving the place they called home for a while. They left. Leaving their baggage behind.

 I looked around in my life and saw so much junk. Stories. Incidents. Memories. All reminding me that some one lived here for whom I re-organised my space to make them at home. All staring me in my face asking me one question WHY?

Then I had what one might call an epiphany at what a Jack Ass I had been.


Jack Ass for letting people in.
Jack Ass for re-organising my space and life to accommodate them.
Jack Ass for retaining their baggage.
Jack Ass for wasting my time thinking about them.

I now have decided. Enough is Enough. I am no more to be Jack Ass.

The Veil

Wearing the veil
It strikes yet again
Agony and Pain
Are now the order of the day

The clock goes
Tick- tock, tick -tock
And here again, is the dreadful knock
Appears this time with out the veil

So strong.
So evil.
So harsh.
No words.
No heart.
All malice.
It strikes and strikes.
Till pulp remains
of what was once called a charmed Life.

Sleep

Nestled in the nook of his neck and shoulder

I watch the pale moonlight

Trickle through a mesh of the leaves

To fall on the one, who I love and hold

The moonlight on the perfect lines of his face

The shadow of the leaves falling like silent rain drops all along his body

The calmness of his rhythmic breathing

Take me a to land, where I sleep.

In the harbour of the stream

She sat by the trickling stream
and dreamt of the sea
of the water
the breeze
the scent
the sound

So real it was
she believed the stream
was the sea

In the window of her dream
she saw it all
the vast expansive never ending blue
the dancing little waves
where her being touched the sea
the soft mushy sand
beneath the soles of her feet

Sitting beside the trickling stream
she was at the sea

So lost she was in the sights and the sounds
of the dream
she forgot the tiny little ant
a little to big for its size
that moved a bit too fast
only to plant a little kiss
on the soles of her feet
that sat bare on the dried leaves

Ouch! she screamed
realised where she was
Cursed the little big ant
And never dreamt of the sea.

The Run

For the last 100 days or so all I was waiting was for this week.

Like a runner preparing for a marathon, I trained.

Pushed myself over and beyond knowing that this is my test of faith and love.

I endured. And smiled.

Despite a million and half worries, despite stress to the point where I could not sleep.

I had hope.

That kept me going on.

That pushed me each time, I was tired and wanting to break free from the the tedium.

I had longing.

Longing.

Through all my troubles, just the thought that, a little more and I will be reunited with my life.

I was tired and hurt and angry. And cursed the road, the people, the weather, the world for doing this to me and pushed myself even harder and longer for letting the world do it to me.

Give up, I did not, I pushed and nudged and prodded, my being, my soul to run harder and reach the finish line to see life and love. And just live and die in the same moment.

(With the gift of hindsight, which is like the angle of parallax, I tilt to assume that image at the end of the finish might as well be a mirage.)

Now, as clock ticks and seconds turn to minutes and minutes to hours, I want to stand in the middle of the two hands of the clock and stop it. Stop time.

Cause now I have no hope, no longing, no desire. No strength to see what lies ahead. Let alone face it.

All I have is this vague sense of weird hollowness, as though some one scooped out a major chunk of life out of me and I still stand, seemingly full.

The Lost Sock Syndrome

Socks exists in pairs.
Some times one is lost.

We were socks.
A pair.
Same colour.
Same size.
Same feel.
We could be worn interchangeably.
Left for the right.
Right for the left.

We lived in the same drawer.
Close.

Then one day, one sock was moved to another drawer.
It became the lost sock.
That was looked for some time.
Then forgotten.

New socks were moved in the lost sock's old drawer.
The un- lost sock got new friends.
They were of a different colour.
Different make.
But, the un-lost sock was happy.
The un-lost sock went places.
Happy places.
Some times, he did think of the happy times with the lost sock.
But, that was some times.


The lost sock, remains forgotten in a drawer.
That is seldom opened.
With dwindling, hope that before the decay sets in,
the drawer is opened
and sock finds the other sock.
To be a pair again.

The Unsung song

We hear those notes
that are sung out loud

The music of the soul
is strong and forever mute
it resonates in us
by the time it reaches us
the vibrations die

Some times they reach us
and then we feel strange
we don't know what it is
we get scared

If we shed the nameless fear
we harbour
we may begin a love affair
that would never end!

The R&R

It's said and believed by a few that, one's ability to Reason is a measure of one's intelligence. It's also said, believed and proved by a few that Reasoning is the ability with which one analyses an entity or an object and it's relationship in the system with other entities.

If this is taken to be the premise, then a person who has maintained all his relationships well has a decent level of reasoning. And which would mean, that he is intelligent.
I know personally, many such "intelligent" people. I believe more than intelligent, they are manipulative. They are untrue, to themselves, to the world and to the friends they claim they have.
Some of the people who walk the planet, prefer solitude. Does that mean that he is not intelligent?

The silent voices that scream in my head.

Where is it that I start and others end?
Where is it that others end and I start?
Who decides?
Life?
Times?
Circumstances?
I believe it's me. I decide. I control. I live. I hurt.

Why do we build walls to protect our core?
When we let some in, why does it always hurt?
Why can't we phrase the most important in words?
Why do people encroach each other's space?
Since, when does the other, the outside become more significant than the inside?
I think I still live in the simple world, where what matters is my intent, my will, my strength.

All that I hear from every one around and beyond is about the others. Why?
I am the source and I am the sink.
If I don't exist the world won't for me.
Why can't any one see the simple truth?
I can't make any sense out of any one. It's like I live in world where I know not a soul and not a soul knows me.

It's I who weaves my abstract thoughts in actions. Actions propelled from my core. Not from some one else's core.
I eat the food. I digest it. I shit it. Not any one else.
Why is it so difficult to understand to realise that if you think you exist. If there is not iota of I in you. There's nothing in you.

Where ever I see. All I see is people driving their insides to meet the outsides. Squeezing, tweezing, bruising to please, to appease, to fit in the so called "outside".
Why?

I believe life is simple. Simple and we complicate it when we forget us and remember others. When we give other's more priority over us. I never do any thing for any one else. I live for myself. I am not ashamed of it.
I do things that please me. It gives me happiness to see my parents happy. I make them happy to make me happy. I don't squeeze me to make them happy. If I do that I can't last long. There's only a limit to which I can squeeze. Only a time till when I will juice then I will dry. I will burn out. And then drained and burned I will curse, I will lash out, I will depress myself and others.

Is it so difficult to see?

The Four Lettered Word

" Through Love, I tasted the spirit of life
Curing one pain, it yielded yet another one"
~ Mirza Ghalib

The truth. Love hurts.
The truth. Love heals.

Exactly how much, in what measure, what time, where,when - all unknown.
There are pointers every where.
Road signs.
Driving directions.
Danger signs.
How to use directions.
Dosage.

But there is no dosage for love. At least none explicitly specified. No sign or warning that beyond this it hurts . Or beyond this it heals.
How does one know?
How does one know when to stop?
How does one know when to reboot?

When I was not in love I was looking for some thing. Some thing strong. A central core to my existence. Now when I am in love correction madly in love I look around, I look within, I stand out side and peep inside. Some times I fall, I cry, I trip and I realise there ain't no directions or signs cause its a journey that I trace with my head and my heart and some times my soul to lead me to that one moment that makes it all worthwhile. That's when I know that I cross the hurt and enter the heal.

August 15

There is a first time for everything.
For the first time in my 23 year old life I am working on Independence Day.
And strangely enough I realise it's value much more today than any other time.

Happy Independence Day to all Indians Worldwide.

My First crush

Ok..
I wake up at quarter past six in the chilly winter morning.. yes winter.. i live in the southern hemisphere.. way down under :)

I saw some thing this morning.. not good or bad.. just some thing..

I saw a public display of rather passionate affection between two females.
I don't think it was strange or weird. I would say it's different.

I just continued walking at my pace but my thoughts had quickened their pace...

And after about 5 minutes my thoughts drifted to the first time my cheeks turned pink because of the blush of the presence of some one.... till now he is the only one I have met.. well we did not exactly meet we were present in the same room.. and many such rooms later but I never could utter a word.. which is very unusual for me..

he was a year senior.. in a different school.. but his aunt was my mum's designer at that time.. it was on one such very embarrassing measurement session ( my eldest cousin was getting married and after a lot persuasion.. I had finally given to the thought of wearing some thing indian) that i had seen him... just glanced at him.. i felt like a fool with the measuring tape all around me and the lady telling my mum that i need some fat on my bones..

After that I saw him a couple of times .. as we lived in the same area.. he lived a few blocks away.. A few years later we spoke and it was nice talking to the guy who made me realise what it is like to go weak in the knees .. :)

My .....I turn 50 list..

Here is the list of the things that I'd like to do by the time I am 50 years ..
They are not in the order of preference.. just jotted.. randomly..

1. Travel to Antarctica
   
2. MS
3. PhD
4. Love some one truly
5. Be loved back truly
6. Be friends with some who speaks Hispanic
7. Live in New York for a while
8. Learn how to ski
9. Write a book
10. Learn at least 2 languages other than Hindi/English
11. Live on a beach facing house
    
12. Travel to Egypt, Africa and Turkey
13. Travel Europe
14. Witness a miracle
15. Feel free.. really free
16. Learn to play at least one instrument
17. Learn calligraphy
18. Read Marcel Proust
19. Gift my dad a car
20. Get a tattoo
21. Feel the bliss
22. Drive in a RV along the Great Ocean Road
23. See the Coral Reef
    

this list is work in progress.. and some of them have already been fulfilled..

The Garden of Eden

I miss the garden of eden. The garden where adam and eve walked their first steps. Where they tasted the forbidden fruit. Where they met and loved. Where they existed and became eternal.

All I see as far as I can see is snow. White.Pale.Cold.Lonely.
There is Ice. Hard.
There is Ice that does not thaw.

You can run and walk on ice and mould it into shapes.But rigid and stubborn it remains.It does not budge.It does not give any room. It freezes in crevices.

I miss the spring where I saw the sunlight trapped in your hair. I miss the curve of your lashes and the way they half cover your eyes.
I miss the warmth.I long for a look from those half open eyes, that light up at my sight.

I wish the winter gets over before the frost gets to the root and kills it all.
I wish for love.