L.O.V.E

I grew up thinking Love was a feeling - one that is very special and only lucky ones get to experience -  those butterflies, the euphoria and the weightlessness - but the more I kept leaving the day I was born behind, the more I realized  Love is not the firework that gushes into the sky as a bouquet of colors and  light, shining bright but then soon losing its spark to the vastness of a night sky.

What really is love then?

My experience with love and loss made me realize that love was never just a feeling but a commitment, a responsibility that we willing take on, even without being asked. It allows our thoughts the freedom to wander, does not let our wishes weigh down to the gravity of life. Love is that space, that very personal one, where we are not scared to express with honesty, where we do not handcuff each other with expectations - be it to reciprocate or to acknowledge. Love is the vision of seeing the best for someone and the best in someone however insignificant that is, it is the sight which notices flaws but chooses not to focus on them and only admire the radiance. 

It transcends beyond the physical boundaries of two humans, connects one soul to the other and there are no fireworks, no gushing streams, no racing hearts in that space but white clouds, soft breeze, tranquility, completeness and familiarity. There is nothing unknown about that feeling, it is as familiar as we are to ourselves. 

How beautiful would it be to love someone like this, without binding them in the vicious cycle of expectations and be loved likewise?

It is commonly said that opposites attract and that there is nothing new to learn from each other when the two people are similar. I differ - opposites attract to light up that firework, but travelling through time with each other they either settle in with each other's differences or drift so far apart that there is no string connecting them anymore. They start existing as separate individuals traversing different paths that can never cross.

I am more of  a believer in the soulmate kind of connection! No matter how physically far both the souls are - the thoughts, the values, the likes and dislikes resonate - and maybe the resonance at times is so strong that they get pulled to each other unknowingly - and we credit the universe for conspiring to make them meet! 😉


Signing off for today!

Long Overdue!

 Yes, I was long overdue to myself!

As strange as it sounds - battling life and expectations, the child inside slipped away so so far. The soul had gradually started making peace with the breadcrumbs thrown at her, more like the pet - that would get hopeful at the sight of its master, play to the master's pleasure and retire back to its corner when the entertainment was over. Shackles start to seem so comfortable at times, that one does not want to break out of it, in the fear of unknown. How a caged bird loses its confidence to fly - the soul has lost its confidence to dream and hope and had been traversing in the darkness for way too long.

At times we never realize that, what we are trying to hold on to is actually blocking us from where we want to be or who we want to be. It is as if we are walking backwards and moving farther and farther away from the destination. The destination for me was a home filled with love and happiness, it always had been, but I realized that maybe home is not about building a concrete structure with someone or even building a life with someone. Home is Us - our love for our soul, makes it feel safe, comfortable and at home like no person, no concrete structure can. When we finally begin being honest with ourselves, start accepting the true self that we are with our flaws and strengths - we are at home! Maybe I can finally begin to say, I have arrived... Incognizant of what my soul needed, I kept running after mirages of love, only to find my expectations shattering every time, I would gather the pieces glue them back again and continue walking towards the next mirage - little did I realize that I had walked past the entire desert carrying the shattered pieces of my soul safely - hoping out of hope that some miracle someday would heal them back into one.

It did seem clueless initially standing at the end of the desert, facing an ocean, full of uncertainties. I stood there numb, anxious, scared every second wanting to run back to the desert, knowing that my feet will burn again, my bruises will be judged and piece by piece I would lose my soul running mirage to mirage --- still my soul said isn't this certainty better than the uncertain hope the waves are trying to take me to? What if I drown trying to swim across the waves, what if I am never able to fix my soul again? What if I have to return unsuccessful to the same scorching desert?  But they say right, when you are God's child, he sends you a rudder to help you sail and reach where you should! 

And yes, I was given my rudder!
How else do you think I would have found my way back here?

As I write, I feel more and more humbled, grateful and blessed to have my own little Universe of happiness, love and peace. The scorching desert, the strong waves have been left so far behind that I can neither feel the heat nor hear the sound of the raging waters.

Where I am headed to is so much more calm, so serene. Maybe I am not there yet, maybe I will never be - but I have finally learnt to love the journey with the faith that destination would arrive when it has to!

My inner child has finally found all the attention and love it ever needed - I have been made to fall back in love with my soul again - can't be grateful enough!! Today is a day to celebrate hope, celebrate life and celebrate love!




Signing off. Will see you all soon :)!!

My hearbeat

My little heartbeat...

When you grow up, I know you will want us to tell you stories about your childhood...so your ammi wanted to tell you stories while you are still within me.

You are the best gift that Allah gave us...it's amazing to feel you play in your little playground...you twist, you roll, you swim around...and I know you are safe. While you were still younger and dint how to be playful...we would hear your tiny heart beat within mine...fast and fast as if there is a lot that you had to get done. Sometimes I would get confused, hearing two hearts beat together within me...but feel overwhelmed the next moment about the bonding we share...you are and will always be our champ and the apple of your ammi's eye...I know it's time for your play...get busy sweetheart!!

The Keeper

She was a child with more adulthood than her contemporaries, her sense of empathy was beyond any normal being of her age. Experiences entered her life by way of her heart, the road through her mind being perpetually unused because she perceived it to be unsafe. In her fear to be safe, she kept running far and wide through the knowns ans unknowns of life, until she prepared to take a plunge, a plunge into the ocean of uncertainties. She knew it would be dark and cold out there and she would have to fight her own battle of survival, the universe tried to stop her; she stumbled on the way - hurt and bled pain - but she was convinced about finding what she was looking for - her safe-keeper, in the deep dark cold waters of the ocean. Turning a deaf ear to the world, convinced by her own conviction of following her heart, she dived...

Soon she realised everything that seemed to sparkle from above were reflections. She got reminded of the warning she received about them...her keeper was nowhere there. There lay everything else illusions, reflections still baring their shine for the world to see. She searched low and wide she couldn't find what she was looking for. Tentacles engulfed her, made it difficult for her to return. Convinced that she was mistaken by what she thought her ultimate destination to be, she wished to return to her own world, the mast of the ship was still visible. He heart filled with newer excitement and new possibilities, she could make it to the ship well in time. She swam with all her might convinced that she had almost reached, she dived in to look for the hanging staircase to get in. To her dismay she realised she wasn't even close, her only

 hope of return had sped past, her body was bruised with the fights and the brutally cold waters...she began giving up. In her mind she still hopes for the ship to return and wishes her keeper would come out from some corner of that deep blue hopeless coldness.

Line between trust & truth

There are dreams, then there are desires and then there is reality. 

When I look back I see myself chasing something that has never been. An imaginary oasis that I have been chasing for half of my life – detouring multiple times because I was thirsty and it felt that reaching that oasis was the only way I could quench my thirst. Now that I have almost arrived at the seeming oasis, I realized there is none and what I took to be the source of my rejuvenation was a part of the same arid desert.

It was the shelter I was looking for after walking so long in the blazing sun, it was the respite I wanted, before I commence my next journey. It feels more dejected and heartbroken than ever before - being abraded at the only open wound I had, being led on in the hope of a destination.  Little did I realize that this destination would open me up to a lonely, cruel, ever stretching uncertainty - the bounds of which my eyes cannot gauge, the difficulties my mind cannot measure, the pain and hardships my heart cannot weigh.

I had tread difficult roads, have gathered a lot of dust on the way, the taint that the dust had on me was not the colour I was born with, neither was it the colour of my heart - my heart is still red, as red as my untainted blood; is still pure, as pure as true love. Then why was I judged, why did they not choose to see me without the dust? Why did they let me in and threw me out like I was only dust and never meant anything else. 

Human minds are proving to be more complicated than I ever thought them to be. I failed to notice the dangerous undercurrents, failed to save myself from stepping into the quick sand. Did I already fall prey to a conspiracy, are the ones I have trusted more playing a dirty prank on me - just to laugh at the me in the end? Whom do I trust, why can I see multiple faces opening up infront of me layer by layer and each layer looks  more scary and brutal than the other.

Destiny or Us?

I have been a believer of persistence, of resilience but never of luck so much!

Maybe because I never felt endowed with it or maybe because I have never met people who have achieved something just because lady luck smiled at them. From people at home to people in the world outside I have always met ones who have been hurdled by destiny - ones who continued their journey braving the hurdles with a persistent HOPE. It would be too fancy to say all of them reached where they wanted to - no, they did not, some are still on their way up and some are in motion but have lost their north stars.

The latter are the ones I want to dwell upon. For everyone else, they know where they are headed and the feeling of having reached there is a familiar one. What about the ones who have lost sight of their destination for reasons best known to them - and are moving because being stagnant enervates them. What hope to they bear in their hearts. Are they hopes of finding their lost star on the way or hopes of finding a new destination all together?

Version 2.0

Woww!

Lot happened in life since I last wrote - I withdrew from a seemingly coveted doctoral program, spent the best vacation ever with family and am back to this busy metro - This time, neither am I a student nor a working professional - I am a seeker !!

Seeker of happiness, of life, of an identity. Every time I have gone back to a city well known to me in a different avatar, it has treated me differently - this one is no different!! People, places are all the same but its a different experience. It is a different loneliness amidst "friends and family", when one has all the time in the world but people around do not, when one tries sneaking out of their shell but no one out there pulls one into the world. Ones realizes that it will have to start all over again and this time the version 2.0 of the story should have different characters and one cannot bank on them to play any lead character, the only person I can rely on is me.

I am not sure if its a myopia again, but definitely there is something which is amiss in this me and the one in version 1.0. This me is like a lake while the previous one was a stream. This me knows her demons and ways to fight them, the ones she cannot fight - she knows how to avoid. This me knows that forever there would be a distance between the world of her dreams and her present world and that she would not ever live it. This me no more a sculpture, but a dough waiting to be molded by a skilled sculptor. This me is no more the fighter but an acceptor; well aware of what she has lost and may never find and what she cannot afford to lose....