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....

Being Practical is Being FEARFUL..!

All these days, I had been evaluating everything that was happening around to find something worthy of mention. Today out of nowhere I had my small eureka moment.

I discovered something seemingly ironic!

Well, blame on my current schedule, I rarely find the time or enthusiasm to converse on long drawn phone calls. Today, being a day off I thought it best to spend sometime chatting away.

The first call was an obvious choice, while we spoke, we landed up in a discussion where this dear one insisted on, me doing something risky, assuring me of support if by any luck I landed up in a mess. I would have blindly gone ahead with the idea, had it been the previous me. However, today it did not quite go down well with me. Precisely why I chose to share it.

No, the idea is not bothering me at all, it flew out of pure emotions and it got me an adrenaline rush. For the almost routine life that I currently have, it was a good enough dose of feel good hormones, in my system. What actually got me thinking was my reaction to the idea and how immensely different it was from the previous times.

Be it because of my starsign or the genetic coding of my cells, I am a natural dreamer and have excellent imagination skills ( I am a trained human resources person, guess now you know where the "skills" came from). But, off lately I have been training myself to being practical and to live in the present. Guess, I have advanced quite a bit in my training.

So, when this idea was presented to me, my natural reaction of diving carefree into the idea was taken over by my trained practical self, who then went on to dissecting the situation and calculating probabilities of success and failure. While the probability of success was considerable, my newly acquired self was consumed in the fear of failure. Though I gave the idea a try eventually being naturally attracted to it ; but quite differently this time - by having a solution ready for each kind of probability to mitigate chances of failure.

My way of dealing with the idea made me look around to find if there were other people like me or was I the only one. What got me to share this feeling was the fact that it is more or less a phenomenon.

While people say being practical is being fearless I have a diametrically opposite thought. To me, risk taking stems from imagination which in turn calls for adventure and attending to that call is being fearless !!

The more practical people become, the more calculative and speculative they transform into. Adventure is not merely climbing a mountain or braving the waves - it can jolly well be anything small that can shake up the status quo.

While I close with this thought for today, you folks can set your sails to take a plunge into the sea of imagination ....... Happy Imagining !!

The dark corners of heart

"She is a carefree. She is headstrong. She is successful. She is always full of life and cackle. She cannot possibly be scared of anything."

I know, the first thing you might have gotten uncomfortable with is my gender bias. Well, yes I would be biased here, not because of any ulterior motive but simply because I want to talk about my fellow gender, because much of the urge to talk about our fears stemmed from a conversation I had with one of my juniors at B- School, while we were driven back to the hostel from an outbound team building exercise. We were having a rather usual "getting to know each other" type of conversation, when we bumped into my desire of experiencing a deliberate failure.

Okay..!! A quick recap. I had recently taken this resolution to try pushing myself to experiencing those situations, the thoughts of which dread me to death. Failure, being one of them - I deliberately brought myself to such a situation. Yes, it was a relatively easy one and the stakes were not very high, however, I hope  it would serve my purpose.

Now, getting back to where I was. As I spoke about my seemingly crazy idea, I found her more and more intrigued. The subsequent change that I observed,  was her increasing level of comfort and her mounting confidence to bare the darkest corners of her heart in front of me, fearlessly - she had gone past her fears of being judged, misunderstood or being made fun of ! We spoke about numerous things, but what lingered in my thoughts was the openness with which she shared herself with me.

Almost all of us have a flair of judging people - positively or negatively, but we do form an opinion about everyone we cross roads with. I started speaking about a girl and I am sure we would have already humanized her in our mental space.

The girl in the picture above, I don't know, who she is but she fits into my description of the girl according to Google and may be quite a few of us.  From the picture we may perceive she is fearlessly confident. Is that really true, is she really not scared of anything or does she pretend not to be scared? 

The second assumption to me, seems more plausible. All of us I am sure are scared of something, the elements of fear may be very unique to us; our fears might not visit us every moment but they do choke us down, make us struggle for that gasp of breath in those lone moments sometimes. Many among us are alive, because they cannot die - apart from their physical self they possibly do not have anything earthly to hang on to; they too are scared, afraid of having to confront failure or loss all over again.We might be engulfed in our fears, but nothing provides more peace and calm than, daring our fears and finally winning over them.

Over the years,I have had the opportunity to share the stories of a bunch of women, at various stages of their lives. What I realized every time was - no matter how open she might come across to be, those dark corners still exist, those are lit only when someone dares to hold the torch, cares to listen and share theirs...!

Who are we...?

All of us or at least most of us are not who we are!....sounds strange?

No, I am not out of my mind...it is a fact,  not many of us would like to acknowledge. From the day we are born, with us takes birth the other us. Yes, we are twins technically but there is a shade of difference - they grow way faster than us. While we stumble to take our first steps , they are already a doctor, an engineer, a bureaucrat, an entrepreneur or a famous personality!

Such strong is the bond, that we are never jealous or insecure about the twin -  rather we see ourselves as one. We dream about walking hands in hands with them - while many actually do, many imagine ! Isn't it so much more easier? A perfect world and the perfect us. We are free, nothing stifles our potential, nothing pulls us back.

It sounds lucrative and enticing, but soon we realize that the twin keeps leaping and jumping to greater heights and while we sit surrounded by a mind and heart full of wishes and desires, wondering how to reach there. The gap between both continues to widen and finally one day we either break out of this web of unfulfilled desires or break down.

By the time we have broken out, leaped and jumped, barely reaching where the other one sat, they would have climbed few more flight of stairs - and the cycle continues...

The twin is our imaginary self...it is created by our parents but grows with us and in us. The other self plays multiple roles with equal dexterity and competence - it is a CEO one moment and a wanderlust traveller in the other.

The real world is imperfect and we might not be transitioning so smooth but that's not the idea....the idea is to make the life of your dreams and live it to the fullest...!
Wouldn't it be great if we could make ourselves so flexible, so agile, so fearless and so free!!

About growing up!!

Sitting alone amidst a room full of stuff scattered around, waiting to be put into bags and carried to a new place...lots of thoughts cross my mind - about life, about growing up, about future!!

With so many thoughts trying to rush out of my lips, I would have otherwise had the urge to pour my heart,shed some tears and long for a warm hug. But, today before I could run to that soul, I stopped myself to think if it was the right thing to do - the pouring out of whatever I had in my heart. Shouldn't I think about the other person too - the state of mind , the stage of life that the person might be in and whether I would be adding to their existing dilemmas about life ?...And I don't go !!

Today and many other days in the recent past did I stop myself from speaking up what I feel, I am trying to be more accommodating - not to comment on whether I like doing it or I take it as a part of growing up. I now, end up doing a lot of things that probably I would not have earlier - when I sit to think of the reasons behind acting so...I sit blank. There is an unknown feeling inside - I fail to recognize if it's loneliness, gloom, anxiety or mere silence. It scares me, bothers me but yet again, I don't share....I'm growing up!!!

I see people madly high on life, I ask to myself - "Have they found the purpose of life?". If they have, why haven't I?
What is it that I'm waiting to achieve, where is it that I'm tirelessly walking to reach? And some voice from within me laughs, a mockery filled laugh - it says - I'm running after a mirage that has never been, "a normal life"! 

As I grow up, every new day tells me how pointless my expectations are - there is no normal and how can something non existent be my destination?I realize that the journey of complexities that I'm struggling to keep myself abreast of is LIFE...

With this wisdom ..hopefully I have grown up!