What Am I Really?

What am I really?
Maybe I am kind of like water…simple in all terms, see-through, omni-present...it has been the destiny of millions through history, who knows what’s our destiny now...necessary for your sustenance, though requiring not much effort or thought except the realization that you can’t “live” without it...you drink me and I take your shape…you can have me but you can’t hold me…you can see yourself inside of me...however much you may have, it is never enough...
Bas just don’t feel that I bloat you too much once the thirst is quenched…be or pretend to be the parched Sahara, ever wanting more!

Maybe I am an open book…easy to flip through, interesting if you get to read and understand in between the lines…will be by your side in your lonely moments, giving company and a sense of belonging…an enigma beyond the fallacious cover...addictive as you read on...trenchant beyond the language...a fantasy beyond the harsh reality...familial and a memory...of a lifetime, for a lifetime...
But just don’t flip away and move on…read and empathize…just don’t judge me by the cover…peer within meaningfully to completely comprehend…and let me not just be kept there on the shelf gathering dust, once you’ve understood it all...I’ll try to be a new chapter to you everyday...try to be unputdownable!

Maybe I am the flowing river...once I start to tumble there’s no stopping me…sometimes I become rapid and convulsive, or deep and dark and at other times passive and placid…yet I am moving constantly with you…altering my pace, crossing over or ignoring the stumbling blocks and rocks that come in between…provenance of life- in deed and action...You can choose to stand on the shore and I’ll quietly grace your feet with my thoughts, keeping you cool even in the hottest of times...
Bas just don’t wash your soiled feet in me and walk away…don’t be frightened when my waves rise high or apprehensive when the furrows fall free…just dive in, cut throw with the force of your arms and keep flowing with me, within me…someday we might merge in the destination that we head to...

Maybe I am like that first dress...you yearn to fit into, however grown you may be...it holds a special brightness...even though it’s lost its colour...it feels like new...even though there’s a bit of a patch somewhere, you show it off to everybody, even though they don’t understand why...because precious it remains as a reminder of the special times when life revolved around it.
So hold me close even when I can’t cover your contours...I need to be snuggled and need you to feel and tell me that I am soft still.

I sometimes feel I could also be that flower in the flower pot...waiting for you to see me, admire my beauty and smell my perfection... I would bring in my colours and make your life fragrant...
Only just don’t get rid of me once I start withering away...I won’t complain...but if you choose, you can keep me within the pages of your personal book, so that I get eternal life with you and remain always there..

Maybe I am a kind of a rubber band- you can pull me and stretch me to suit your purpose…you can twist me and carry me along, but just don’t throw me off when the purpose is done and expect me to be back in the same shape again!

Let me be the shadow...always around, by your side...not expecting to be a part of you...the shadow shall have its own entity and the owner shall have his own...when it’s hot and bright, I shall walk along and when it’s comforting moonlight I’ll hide away...always there but only making my presence felt when you need it...

Let me be the mountain...you can come to me when you seek solitude, sit with me and talk loud your thoughts and I can assure no one else would hear them...if you are crying, I’ll absorb all your tears that fall...bask in my strength and when the sun sets and you are about to leave...I’ll give you the undisturbed view of the plain truth that we are merely specks in the world...not to humiliate you but to make you humble...and when you finally leave...I’ll be waiting for you to return!

Whatever I am…
I don’t know it myself…
I hope you do and value it too…
When you walk through life…keep me close…close enough to let me know what’s happening on the way...yet not so close that I begin to suffocate you…
Let’s give each other space and yet be in the environment…
I hope I don’t seem easy to you…but just easy to be with…
I hope I don’t disturb the chords of your peace, but add to the ‘harmony’ that seems to be just another word for you…
I hope whatever I am…I am not just “whatever” to you!

(Thanks to a dear friend for editing and adding some parts to this!)

The Ultimate Seductress or The Ultimate Bitch!

Well, what began as a normal day at the gym, soon became the record breaking hottest day for the gym-vaasis. A smouldering new entrant in her itsy bitsy track suit made a majestic appearance and suddenly the treadmill scuttling at the speed of 10.5 was not fast enough to match with the near exploding pace of the heartbeats of the ‘man’kind present there. “Who issssssss that girl?” was the question that boggled most of the male and female kinds within 10 meters of the diameter for even though most of us adorned our sexiest sport gears or so we thought for using that unisex time slot, we appeared shabby before that Greek goddess of sorts. A couple of the not-so- fair-in-the fairer sex were eyeing the damsel up and down so intently that I almost wondered about their sexual preferences. And another couple of them who were the hitherto reigning uncrowned gym queens were burning with envy or was that rage and their expressions indicated that if you’d touch them you might be electrocuted.

Okay, after such a build up, obviously you want to know about the girl-small of frame but big of assets and as we all concur-size does matter. Chalo, this should get our male readers to read on. She must be 5.5” and in early twenty something, dressed in lycra leotards that fitted so snugly at the right contours, that they seemed like second skin for her. The art of dressing is also really an art, the real skill comprises of revealing what you are showing to be hiding er, did you get that? Well, I didn’t-I am adding it because it sounds quite profound!

So, while all of us pragmatic females tied up our hair in a make-do bunch at the top of our heads to escape the heat, Madam, left her tresses wantonly open, the soft curls seductively covering the better part of her back till her well-endowed bottom. It reminded me of some fierce Maenad from Greek mythology who was so drunk in her devotion to her Lord Bacchus that she cared not how the locks of her hair alluring fell over her gleaming skin. Ah! But the lady in question was not so naive. She fully knew the effect she was having and “performed” more intently to ensure she got a “standing” ovation from those who personify the ‘I-am-only-human waala excuse’. Right from the gym members to the trainers and the cleaners-sab ki band bajee hue the ya nikal pade the, it was difficult to fathom. You know that gaping mouth expression where you can’t make up your mind if the person is happy, shocked or devastated?

Oh, did I use the word ‘covering’ somewhere above? Tch, tch, how silly of me! Well, she didn’t believe in that for every now and then she would casually put all her hair on one shoulder to make sure everyone caught a glimpse of her bare nape and the deep neck of her t-shirt from behind. What a lesson it was that day for us and I don’t mean here the lessons given in the aerobic moves!

I could feel everything moving in slow motion like in Hindi movies, when the guy and the girl are running towards each other with effortful rising of hands and legs, heads moving from side to side as the body goes slowly up and down with background score of ‘la la la la’ to match. Same was the case in this turf-those raising the dumbbells forgot that they had to bring the hand down also and the one on the cycle was paddling with such soft motions as though he was taking a nap between each rotation of the wheel. The cleaner boy kept cleaning the same spot of the mirror for what seemed like eternity and I thought the poor looking glass was going to fade away with the sweeps that day.

This was awesome for me. I suddenly lost count of the crunches I was doing as I joined the jing bang in eyeing her. And before you doubt MY tendencies-phuleeeeeezeee, I was doing it for you guys to be able to reproduce this here later to tickle your funny bones too. I have always been inclined towards constructive learning and this was an educative experience of how conniving and artificial a drop dead gorgeous stunner could be! A lesson learnt in addition-Men also go dumb when they are blinded by the sight of sex-in-a-jumpsuit.

While at 7 am like in the bloody good early morning, while most of the lesser mortals could barely wash their face or brush their teeth to smell tolerable before finding themselves being ground on the treadmill, our little Miss Minx had kaajal smeared eyes that could put Aishwarya Rai to shame and smelt of something no lesser than Channel No. 5 to rightly reinstate the effect.

I observed her game as I watched her moves. She took her place right at the centre of the hall from where she would be visible to all and sundry. She made sure she eyed herself sexily and completely in the mirrors all around. As she would bend down her knees, she would deliberately protrude her bums out, jutting out dangerously almost like the backlights of a truck-making some guys horny and some guys sweat, although they hadn’t even begun the work out yet. Then she slowly moved her hands up her sides suggestively and placed them on her teeny weenie waist. When she touched her toes, she made sure that she stayed in that position for a tad extra seconds, till her rear side had done sufficient damage to the environment.

And then came beads of sweat trickling down her own tiny frame and she picked up a hand towel. While we normally press the napkin in rough side to side motions to hasten the process, madam gently dabbed and pressed and rubbed it on her cheeks, taking it slowly down her nape, neck and upper chest. As her bosom heaved, the action had an equal and opposite reaction from the rippling chest muscles of the six-pack superior sex, watching the performance “Live”.

Then madam got on to the tread mill and make no mistake, it was a catwalk that could give the top models their run for the money. And then lo, behold a frown on that sculpted face! What on earth could have caused it despite the obvious swoon all over? And she blurted out huskily to the boy instructor, “Raaayjuuuu....” Well for all of us normal humans, we’d call out this simple common place name ‘Raju’ and for the Punjabi mundas there, it is just ‘oye Raaaju’. But madam had to stretch and prolong and heavily accent the name, so much that Raaayjuuu, appeared in a jiffy before his highness, like a domesticated puppy minus the tongue lolling out or was it really?

Madam had a problem with the music-so changed it was! Had she had a problem with the arrangement of the equipments, I am sure the guys would have not hesitated to pick up one each and come to rescue the damsel in distress.

So ten minutes passed away like this, when madam got down from the treadmill, bending her head down and brushing through her hair with skilful fingers, apparently to let some air in. Phew! I had had enough too. I needed to breathe in some air myself. The adaayein of the ultimate seductress were being dissected by the women folk as the tacky ways of the ultimate bitch. Whatever, she was much like the sizzler platter, hot and fresh out of the oven- you might not be able to have it but you can’t escape the steam it generated!

As for me, I couldn’t help wonder at how ridiculous that was and what motives could possibly provoke such deliberate nonsense. Also I shuddered to think that this ‘drill’ would be in encore mode from that day on and desperately hoped that the men and women there might gradually become immune to the disaster that had struck. Thank god for wishful thinking! ;)

Is 'I love you' really a milestone still?

I hate the line “In our times, it used to be different” regardless of the fact that it is being mouthed by me or not. Being uttered by someone else implies you have to sit through a narration that borders to cribbing and oozes with disappointments with the current scenario. When tumbling from my own beautiful mouth piece, it hints conspicuously that I have aged and “my times” were so bloody long ago, that now the predicament seems different!

Yet, however, kintu, parantu, nevertheless...
I would use this line here yet again because I want to analyse and reinstate the worth of those three words that used to make or break someone’s life in ‘our times’- the days of my tender teens and smouldering-just-arrived youth, settling down with its roots within, not packing its bags to leave.

I remember how in school time, this must have been when I was in 9th standard, when a friend of mine, who secretly pined for a handsome, cool 9th grader of another school, got bitten by the ‘I love you’ bug, after it was so confessed. Her outings with us trickled down, her interest in everything else waned and we all resigned not without the jealous banter, to the background, as for years after that she just remained a hopeless case in our group and less of our ‘friend’. The sin of being indifferent in friendship due to the inclination of love...was considered as a sacred one and easily forgiven.

Then another one bit the dust when we were the threshold of class 12th. Suddenly one morning, she came rushing to us in school, her face deathly white in pallor as though she had seen a ghost. Her speech became a nervous twitter, her hands trembled and her lips twitched. But when the catastrophic tragedy was revealed to us, we laughed our guts out at the irony of it all. She had said “I love you” to a boy she had been communicating with since a short while and now this meant that things would never be the same again. She was officially out and off from the “available” market and into a “serious” relation not a fling. Her ‘status’ had changed overnight. She blabbered breathlessly, “Oh, this means I am committed. This means I have to say this phrase again n again every day. This means I have told him that my body, mind and soul belong to him. This means....” And all this while we were swooning with “awww...’s” and droopy dreamy eyes. I am still not sure if ‘this means’ that she didn’t love him yet to be able to accept the proportion of what had been said or boggled by the what-comes-after!

Such was the seriousness of the phrase in our times. A verbal commitment that was as full and final as doomsday and as though you have mentally taken the proverbial ‘saat pheras’ of connubial bliss! You dare not falter or deviate. You dare not assume that your world revolves around anything else. “I love you” was a milestone appearing at the fork of life. Once crossed, you take up like a pre-destined path and you never return to that point of choice again. It’s like packed, sealed, delivered now yours!

In the current times the world has become our oyster and love comes cheap. It is exchanged several times like the ten rupee note casually whisked from one hand, handled roughly and kept momentarily as loose change, before being lavished on someone else. Everyone’s always needy and greedy! It is amazing that one ten rupee note is used by the owner to create a make belief situation for five others, who feel they possess it solely with them, when actually all their pockets are wanting.

What romanticism was intertwined in that phrase, a liberating ease that came to the heart, spoken only when the ebbing lava of emotions would threaten explosion! And once flowing out would render a soothing calm to the surface that burnt erstwhile. It was almost a ‘phew!’ that came out naturally, for all that was guarded and locked somewhere deep, was finally shared.

In today’s pragmatic ways of life, it’s spoken by the fifth day of association, repeated to someone else by the fifteenth day and forgotten to be repeated to the former by the twenty-fifth day. It is now guided more by passion and less by emotion. At this rate it would soon replace the commonplace phrases like ‘Hello! How are you?’

No longer is “I love you” the flowery wreath that gently binds...it is now the gruesome chain that handcuffs. So often it is used in a mock-casual way that my heart yearns to think...falling in love happens every other day, caught like the flu and lost like the common cold.

Sigh! Sigh!
Well, when we introspect in our lives and the world and the things found, lost or forgotten...may we lament the fact of how offhandedly we are using Cupid’s arrows in our stupid games!
Sigh! Sigh!

When I caught someone on the wrong foot-no puns intended!

A little dash of humour,
Some pinch of fun,
A sniff of naughty grins,
An undercurrent of puns,
Will brightens every ordinary day
And carry you bouncingly in its sway!

So here’s something to tickle those funny bones at my expense of course...And get those smiles extended from one corner of your mouth to another!
Try karo, it is possible...
Especially since the effort to make you do so is coming from me!
They say smiling is infectious and you catch it like the flu...so instead of encountering that deadly one on the rampage, let’s make you smile too!

This is how my little anecdote of proven dumbness goes:
Recently it was the birthday of a net friend of mine...with whom I did not interact much but he ended up with a place on my friend’s list on Face book...
So I caught up with him and wished and all...
To linger on the conversation most topically, I asked him ‘So how does it feel to be ageing...one more year down?’
Saying a ‘whoosh!’ in heart of heart that this should manage to make him use a few bloody lines and ease my burden of having to extend the conversation...

He said kinda pompously... “Arrey ageing kya...they say men get naughty when they reach forty!” (With all the flirtish signals jarring and vibrating so loud that I could almost hear them, buzzing annoyingly in my ear sans any sound).

So I replied (must have given my thinking caps for a wash and adorned my less logical generosity caps) “Arrey waah so you turn 40! I must say you look at least 3-4 years younger than your age”
And in retaliation I read “Grrrrrrr...” on my screen...
Scratching my head at how I could have possibly gone wrong in this very pointed aim of any man’s ego boost...or rather let’s not be gender biased here...any human’s ego boost to be more categorical; I asked “What happened?”
And he said... “Suruchi, I am turning only 33 this year!”:(
Hahahaha....
And I laughed my guts out...:)

Thank god he could not hear my ringing laughter managing to create an echo through my echoless room, as I imagined the fuming sulk that must have been flashing and flushing on his offended countenance at the other end of the screen, somewhere thousands of miles away! If you look at his profile picture...he seems ageless...wait, wait my friends...there’s more to it...ageless bole to Aishwaraya Rai types ethereal beauty nahi yaar...matlab he looks anywhere between 30 to 40...what a bloody big range to confuse ordinary lesser mortals like me! So I am not really to be blamed here huh! And I am really not this dumb everyday! He just caught me on the wrong foot...the slippery one or did I catch him on it...whatever!

Mujhe lag raha tha ke kahin the sky should splatter and mother earth should open her intestines to gobble me ala Sita ji of Ramayana fame... Of course metaphorically our motivations were different but the intents were similar...the shame of having done something unpardonable, at least in the view of someone else concerned....itne bade le meine of poor guy on his birthday...tch, tch...bahut paap lagega mere ko!
A silent prayer is urgently needed here: god, forgive those who err when they do not know what they do...and even when they do it this badly!

But as though it was not enough...
I read that my dumb fingers were still conspiring against the peace of the rest of my body and the impression of any sanity thereby...for automatically was typed on the screen:
“Hahahaha...oh...ok sorry! But then I must say you look quite like your age...matlab nice and mature...or rather age kaise bhi dikhe kya faraq padta hain...at least we know kitne hain at the end of the day!
Hahahaha...”

Can you believe that?
I had to make up big time...by flattering the poor guy after that...abhi uska birthday tha yaar...I had already done much damage.
Needless to say I have not heard from him since...
Hehe...but I thought it was hilarious and hence shared!

A Crush Really!

What’s a crush really?
So easy to catch, so difficult to give up!
Swine flu- the world is hollering crazily...
I say the worst is yet not recognized let alone be thought of dealing with!

Most people get ‘crushed’ all the time...
Better than love...for here you don’t have to bother about taking it to the next level of “happily ever after”...you just allow it to be within you, with or without follow up action botheration!
Worse than love...for people say love happens once in a lifetime or may be twice if you are lucky, whereas crushes provide unlimited entry into their realms even at the hint of the slightest association, whether you suspect it or not! So oh- so-oftener the heart aches and burns!
More convenient than love...for you don’t have to analyse your thoughts too much, just go with the flow and enjoy the ride...!
Simpler than love too... for you can delay the process of having to go through the grind to give it that name and thereby the seriousness it deserves...!
More mind-boggling also...for you are never be certain if this is just a passing phase or something you would never be able to pass by!

It’s much like a random occurrence -a natural phenomenon...like say admiring the serene hills covered with dazzling, pristine snow- Can one do anything but that, when a whole plethora of beauty stares at you?
It’s like a sojourn into the favourite human zone of “what-if” possibilities...
You enter with a mind set of discovery and continue with hope and self justifications that it is just a crush...
Love at first sight is downright dumb and crush at first sight makes much more sense!

Many a times love burns and yearns within hearts for fear of stirring up uncertainty and restlessness, damaging a healthy friendship or simply the fear of rejection. But a crush requires no real balls really, to admit that it has made home, for it is easier to bail yourself out of it, at least on face value. If the confession evokes:
Uncertainty: “Oh yes, I am not too sure about it myself...I mean it’s just a crush...let’s chew on the thought for a while and take no action till we are surer.”
Shock: “Exactly, I am shocked too...maybe it’s just a crush...let’s take it one day at a time and see where it might take us”
Rejection: “Never mind, it’s just a crush...it would pass by without killing me really and we can get back to how we were prior to this silly confession”
And acceptance or a coy smile: “Balley, balley! The world is in your palm now!”
Bottom line: Heads you lose and tails I win!

Should crushes be taken seriously?
Naah and yeah!
Naah depending upon the frequency with which it hits you...for if it is as natural and recurrent as breathing air for you...it will quite naturally also pass by like the air you take in from one nostril and release from the other before it chokes you. Yeah also, because if it is as rare as hmm...say a meteor coming dangerously close to earth... then you must remember that most feelings that eventually take up the shape of love begin as a seedling of a crush. Having crushes is healthy- it ascertains that you are alive and so are your senses- attuned to appreciate, admire and get attracted to still, whether or not you are so-called “available” in the market.

So instead of resisting- admit it.
Instead of making it a mind churn, make it a mind relaxer.
Instead of sapping yourself, bloom out and reach.
Instead of crushing you down, make it help you evolve and progress! Let it catch you, without you being caught!
Let it yearn, without you being burnt!
Let it breath, not choke!

Pleasure is Relative and Happiness is Absolute

In one of the Face book messages for the day, I got this simple little line which made a lot of sense:
Pleasure is relative while happiness is absolute.
At the first instance it leaves you with a sense of puzzlement as to how they are different?
But they really are...
Pleasures are small nitty gritties of life that we strive for each day...like those dear tasks which we like- if they get fulfilled or those annoying ones- if they get removed from our path, they bring us pleasure. We bathe in the shower of this momentary joy feeling the blood rush and smiles widen and a general feel good factor within.

Happiness on the other hand is not transitory. It does not come and go like pleasure. It is either there and if there then to stay or you are completely devoid of it. It is deeper and more fulfilling. It just doesn’t cover the gaping holes; it saps the voids, protectively and meticulously. Once you get that job, pass your grade, throw that grand party, meet the deadline...the pleasure no doubt is great but only till you move on to the next task at hand and again sit to fret about it till its accomplishment; Whereas happiness becomes synonymous with permanent and long lasting peace and content. Happiness is not related to fulfilment or failures and to things...it is a state of mind!

What should we strive for?
Obviously happiness...
In the mundane humdrum of life, if we stumble upon failure in complying to achieve these little pleasures, it’s not such a big deal. It’s constructive for it triggers off double the amount of endeavours. What we really need to strive for...is making our inner self bask in contentment, for if we fail there, it’s pretty much a situation of complete despair. “What I have is enough and I could have been worse than this” is a beautiful self driving thought.

My better half and I met a friend of ours recently who had put on way too many pounds on his otherwise handsome and lean frame. So at the first instance of disbelief, my dearly beloved questioned him ‘Why did you let go yourself? How did you get so fat?’ To this a big cherry smile glowed on his face as he remarked... “Yaar but look at my face, still handsome na? And mera new hairstyle kaisa hain? Mast lag raha hoon na, and what’s in weight, phir lose kar lenge”, saying which he moved on in all his jocularity, leaving us with slight rub offs of it.

What a lesson it was in living life to the fullest! This man turned the tables of what could have otherwise been a tricky and embarrassing situation of putting the receiver in the dumps of self criticism or sympathy or both. But it seemed to make him radiate even more confidence as his intrinsic being was at peace with himself.

Let’s be at peace for that’s the only way. A dear friend of mine says that whatever good or bad happens with us is due to our karmas...completely true. But then if we stop indulging in taking credits or blames of these happenings, there would be a catharsis of sorts. When I am exalted, I am not the doer...this is by a greater design of the Almighty meant for my self-improvement and progress. When I fail or falter, it’s not me either...I merely chose to trod on the path that God laid before me. This does not imply that we rid ourselves of the responsibility to judiciously choose...but do rid of the guilt as well as the pride, which follows after every execution of outcomes and move on. Learn from our mistakes, be motivated by our achievements and also stay in acceptance of it, by sending the vibrations back to the universe. Don’t harp on it in a mind churn!

Live for happiness and not pleasures!
Just sit one day and think over unthinkable thoughts-what’s the worst that can happen to you? Like once I did...I could lose my beauty, I could lose my near and dear ones, I would no longer have a limb or I could be thrown out to live on the street...would I perish or decide to jump off the bridge?
Who’s to say now? But then I would not and hope not be completely flabbergasted by it. I would not lose my spirit. I may be emotionally weak, but sustenance strong...I would survive. If God has sent me to this world, he’s done so with certain realizations and would feed me or bring those occasional smiles...the rest would be my karam.

Interesting here is also the differentiation between karma and karam...is there one? Hmmm...More on this after I get a bit of enlightment myself over how relativity co-exists there!
Till then loads of happiness to all my readers and wiping out of all voids!

Divorced but not separated from joy!

Connubial bliss is what most of us strive for…but so do we also for perfection, hassle free existence, commitments, soul mates and instant connects. More often than rare, we keep ‘striving’ for these life-long to reach that state of utopia which is just a figment of our imagination. Recently a dear friend of mine sent me food for thought by emphatically stating that marriage is not an ideal state. I didn’t concur of course at first, being cushioned in my cosy domain of the same but upon deeper reflection I questioned myself and who gave me the bloody rights to disagree, with there being a life beyond it or by oneself. I also realized despite all the good intensions, how futile and callous it is sometimes, to insist upon someone to mould his views, when he or she has been once bitten and twice shy.

Unfortunately, I have many friends now moving through the rocky lands of divorce, separation and life after that. By god’s grace, none of them seem deflected from the path of finding little nuances in everyday lives to bring them smiles. If anything at all, they impress me time and again with the infectious zest they carry along for not just breathing through life...but also living it to the brim. Messy marriages I have seen all around with the spouse suffering from schizophrenia, an abusive husband, a lying straying one, a loveless marriage of blame games, lacking the laws of attraction...reasons could be varied. It’s said you need both hands to resound a clap…twisted that Hindi proverb a bit, hopefully not lost in translation…But then who is to decide who’s fault it is really?
A fault for a marriage going sour…definitely…but to say it’s a fault to move out of a faded relationship…is a big unforgivable fault in itself because THAT my dear friends is not a fault at all!

The world in general seems to favour the state of being “happily married ever after”. Live in relations do not get the same status, privileges and rights as the blissfully married label allows you, forget about societal acceptability. Socially you are more liable to being and feeling the odd one out without a spouse, when the gathering is brimming with happy faces tagging on to their better halves, even if that’s a facade. In many professions like in the army or being in the public glare, it is preferable to put up a smokescreen of a healthy marriage than to admit that the bloom there since a long time ago, has rotten and now even begun to stink. For the sake of families, children, financial stability, etc, compromises are meted out. It is still easier to bear the brunt in the background by staying passive than to take that giant leap and stand bare in the spotlight. To add to these pressures and this mad condemning race, health wizards increasingly point out to the threats of heart risks, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, depression and other ailments that one is open to after parting ways. Divorced individuals are stripped and ripped apart and staying married is the only way to be if you want to remain in the fabric of ‘proper’ order, physically and mentally.

As if the burning heart is not enough…everyone wants to rub their share of salt on the wounds. Consciously or deliberately, we put the accused in a mind trial, sitting mercilessly in our self-claimed haughty chairs, to bring out inferences and judgement of what could have possibly gone wrong. You can move out of a broken marriage but you can never really fill up the scars or silence the gossip mongers, let alone come out of a constant battle with your own guilt pangs and personal failure. And then after going through such ordeals, if a person survives and chooses to be reclusive or on guard, there we get new opportunities to point fingers at all over again!

No one would deliberately want a broken marriage…but then sometimes the circumstances are such that it’s better to walk out than to be slowly crushed. We all grow up with dreams of a tall, dark, handsome man on a white horse or a beautiful, angelic maiden walking out of clouds beckoningly towards us. But then adulthood brings with it harsh realities and the sense to see beyond just the pretty face. Life’s not a fairy tale and marriage is not a dead end. Media, through examples, books and movies, may propagate the allusion of ‘love of a lifetime’ or one that lasts forever...but the fact is that increasingly such notions are being challenged and turned to dust and a pragmatic approach and acceptability is the need of the hour.

A divorce is not the end of the road...it is the beginning of a new journey. A broken marriage has nothing to do with a broken or dubious character. It may just be the case of non-blending of individuals, who by themselves rock the world but together rock each other to complete incompatibility. Each one of us has a different flavour to offer with our individualistic perfections and flaws, regardless of the fact that in a particular combination we rattle or turn distasteful...The amalgamation needs to be corrected not the ingredients discarded. Equally true for my friends going through this upheaval, is to realize that they need not take themselves off the shelf. There’s no expiry date to being able to solicit new relations. We are not products that run off to being finished if used or misused once. We grow with time and learn with experiences. Once bitten twice shy can be strongly countered by the saying if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! No inventions or discoveries of things that matter on the planet today were made without passing through the trial and error phase.

The world awaits us with open arms. With better sensibilities let’s embrace a new understanding and rid ourselves of scars. Let’s be open to experiments but done so cautiously and prudently. Let us not get tempted to be revengeful by going astray and inflicting similar wounds to others. But also let go of prejudices and the unreasonable act of putting each prospect through the same lens of suspicions with fear of an encore. When nothing in life is permanent, this too shall pass...go with the flow my friend and don’t bury the heart so deep within that it is not ready to float along!

What hurts a person the most?

What hurts a person the most? Food for thought...
The amount of food I have for thought with me...phew! No wonder I am unable to attain that elusive zero figure...
I keep munching and gobbling on it all the bloody time!
Small little things of everyday life prick us all and leave scars that last a long while...the bigger hurts we are able to handle, the seemingly less important ones continue to nibble at us within.

The most common human stumbling block in this is the lack of importance from those whom we love...
Nothing can be worse than that!
To be the centre of the world for someone and then just not come within his or her revolutionary orbit!
The feeling then that...was the love showered on me just a case of the shooting star passing by or like a meteor hitting upon my surface leaving a burnt dent in me before disappearing onto nothingness?
So much planetary allusions, you must be wondering...
Well, it is like a planetary conspiracy...the famous saying...maybe it’s written in the stars....

Not just in the love between a man and a woman, it transpires most obviously in all our relations. Daughters getting married and leaving for the husband’s abode, causes them both to wonder have the strands of attachment been stretched too far? Brothers and sisters who have grown up sharing all their secrets with each other suddenly realize that there are more people entering that cosy comfort zone which they proudly safeguarded as their own.

It is said that in true love there is no possession...it’s more important to let go...but then equally true is something else that’s said...it’s easier said than done. Of course after the initial while, the heart and mind gets used to of the person not being around. But those just-been-stricken days, are excruciating to say the least and almost like someone pulled away the ground from our feet and the grounds we so contentedly stood tall on.
I would like to provide you with a key here...the key to survive such a catastrophe...but the irony here is that I just have questions and no answers. Despite going through it umpteenth of times in terms of my own experience and narration of others’ woe tales with the same...I have not yet learnt to live and tell. I have found no keys of how to deal with being shunned from importance like on the first day, first one week or maybe even the term of the first month...whatever the prolonged status of mess is considering the depth of relations. Sooner or later it would pass but then how do we make ourselves strong enough to deal with it when it arrives or its realization does in the form of the popping up symptoms?

It is said expectations are the seeding grounds of disappointments. If you expect nothing you will never get disappointed. But then aren’t we all made of the basic fabric of expectations? If we plant a seedling in the beds of our garden, would it be too unwise to expect it to mature? If we get home a puppy that jumps around us wagging its tail, is it unreasonable to expect it to continue doing so when it outgrows itself in dimensions? If we crave for our beds each night after gruelling days, is it very demanding to expect to go into a deep sleep of peace and rejuvenation?

We as humans are not unreasonable and it’s time we accept that. If I demand to be treated in a certain way, please be bloody sure that I have earned to deserve it. However, equally sure should be me that I am not over doing my demanding act. Before rights come responsibilities. I need to fulfil my duties to earn my pleasure and leisure. I need to give to be able to get. I must be less sentimental to match with the pragmatic world.
I should change me before attempting to alter the way the world thinks. And like a dear friend of mine insists after every debate we have about the essence of things in the world...ACCEPTANCE of it all ends in peace of body, mind and soul.

What hurts now would heal someday and the scars might disappear if we stop noticing them every now and then! When He provides you the wounds, he also makes arrangements for the balm...we just need to be more observant to perceive it! Also perhaps what hurts the most reaffirms its value to us and thereby reasserts the need to double in efforts to strengthen it! What hurts the most makes us seek elsewhere for that which provides us the most delight too! May each one succeed in his journeys!

A Walk down the Memory Lane...

Recently I got some school and teenage times pictures of mine scanned and uploaded on the social networking site-Face book which brought a whole gang of my school and college friends into action...commenting, remembering and poking, for all of us batch-mates were stirred within by a churning feeling and yearning to return back to those good old days. As we conversed and communicated, the past memories came unraveling and filled me with that deep sense of something lost, when you feel happiness and sorrow at the same time. Joy that these days did come in your life at some point and despair that they passed by so soon!
Some of what we remembered I would like to share here...

This must be when we were in Grade 5. Normal children at that age are coy and geeky but we...na ji na...we never did confirm to any standards and sought to shatter them whenever they sternly towered before us. I would either scandalize you or cause you to break into guffaws with this, but either ways this must come out. We were not horny or malevolent...just simply fun driven. There was a gang of some five of us and what was our favourite once-a-day drill? To bend down under the benches and be able to tell what colour the girl behind us, with her legs spread apart almost always, was wearing....ewwwww gross when you think of it now. But then an insane competition would ensue of who would succeed in knowing the maximum colours and also making predictions of the colour next day! How we judged the authenticity of the winners was subject to much controversy and eventually got the cat out of the bag. The age old tradition was quite nipped in the bud, but then it was maha adventurous till it lasted. I guess all-girls school or an-all boys school are indeed injurious to health of growing children, for see how we have turned out to be!

This next anecdote must be from the time when we were in Class 11th, I think. A beautiful rainy day of monsoons like now and my friend Surabhi and I decided to go for a drive to grab up some eatery. Now my little town has a famous street called Arya Nagar with equally little food shops fringing either sides of this long lane. It is like the Mall Road of big towns and the hang out for youngsters. So like they say “mulla ke daud masjid tak”....whenever we would want an outing, Arya Nagar was THE place to go to, with its shops offering nick-knacks to tantalize the taste buds and “items” of either sex hovering about to capture the eye of someone who’d be interested...

So dressed in beautiful Indian suits, we parked our car on the opposite side of the street of a shop which had two handsome famed hunks of our town standing under its shed. Hmm...We were out on a prowl and had just found our targets. This was our destination for ‘ek teer do nishaana’ syndrome...khaane ka khaana and harmless display of ourselves and some eye tonic as well...Why settle for less, when you can get more, simple fundas!
So with oodles of style pouring out of our pores, we moved out into the pitter patter to go to the next side of the road.

Handling our duppattas with great ada, unruffling our mildly wet hair, pulling our salwaars mischievously some 7 inches above the ankle due to water all around and smiles playing on our faces...what hopes of great conquest we thought awaited! Surabhi moved out first and just as she was about to walk out to the spot, she went off my focus and disappeared...
Aha, no magic there my friend....because when I looked around I did not see her, but when I looked down, there she was stretched out upon mother earth. Apparently there was a main-hole or something open, just outside the shop and she had dropped into that full on, since due to water logging on the street, no inch of the ground was visible. Suppressing my laughter and thinking how dumb she can be to fall before the hunks and let me add to my market value by rescuing the damsel in distress, I took the giant leap for mankind to lend her a helping hand...

And voila! The very next moment I joined her on the ground for it was not a main hole but a drainage line...And for the next five minutes, what did we do? We sat flat out on the ground, right in the middle of the busiest high end street of our town and laughed our guts out.

The handsome hunks had more of surprise on their faces than any kind of conducive impression that we had expected to create...But they also lost big time on our cards for not being chivalrous enough to come forward to help. Probably they had learnt by my example and feared wetting their branded clothes...So after being completely drenched in that street water, a pathetic sight to look at probably...we still had the balls to walk past these guys and order our burgers...went full on back in the rain, laughing and dodging the conspiring drainage to latch onto us again. What a day! Those out on a conquest had been conquered and tagged with being the dumbest girls but we had loved each moment of it!

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh...so much more to share...but let me keep that for a sequel for just these two memories have left me with a sweet, light aura that I would like to linger...So until next time let that child in you stay alive! I stopped growing mentally after the age of 21...and no fatal damages have been done so far but letting me rest in peace. So stay alive and kicking!

We all are Little Bags of Contradictions!

Confess, confess and cleanse...
I certainly am a big bag of contradictions!
In fact such is my state that most of the times I amaze myself only, by remaining stuck in self created bafflements. I demand for things I can’t supply. I call myself independent and within moments crave for protective hands to hold me. I declare I am strong but the slightest hint of hurt gets me in an inner turmoil, never mind how I project ‘me’ to the world. It’s not just the difference between saying one thing and meaning or showing another. It is really like the two faces of the coin with us all. So when we flip the coin up, we should be prepared that either side could land on our palm. This however, leaves us in a perpetual state of doubt of who we really are or what we really want. Also then as such, we can’t raise fingers at others...for what we can’t fathom, how would they be able to unravel it?

Upon deeper thought, no one can really live on the verge of extremes forever and God made us in his notorious designs of mind boggling paradoxes. Aren’t the most confident of souls ever confused? The most morality stricken ever detoured? The degrees and frequency may vary but basic intrinsic human nature tends to oscillate...We like being pendulums and the steadiness of remaining still in the centre almost brings our clock to a standstill. We also don’t like to be in one periphery for too long. Hence the paradigm shifts keep the life moving by adding that zing.

So, much as you may hate the predicament, inconsistencies are not always negative!
For each time you contradict yourself, you know a little more about you- good or bad. It leads you to questioning about what is it that you really are seeking here...time to see the mirror and reflect.
At other times when you contradict, you are perhaps only looking for a validation. It is a desire for the assertion of that side to you, which you want to hear of or pine for by this so called 'contradiction'. It may also often be just a help call to others to lift you out from the rut, by putting you on the fringe where you really should be, for otherwise you tend to dilly dally the analysis living in the fear of arriving at it or just not strong enough to do it by yourself.

You may also negate or challenge just for the heck of it...for lack of anything better to do, and it provides you an adrenalin rush to get into argumentative mode with yourself or others. You seek to create a mystery around you, letting others hang on to your every word and dare not take you for granted. For when they do, you get the chance to spin a complete 360 degrees and get to watch with sinful pleasure, the disbelief on their countenances. Who’s to say the high from this drill is any lesser than that provided by the ales at the counter of a bar or less morally wrong for that matter?

Also within all contradictions of persons or their speeches lie the subtle hints as to their actual inclinations. It needs no special discerning eye to gauge that...just an empathetic and open heart. No matter how confused we say we are or make others feel it, deep down we know our true selves and what we are actually capable of...
Mystery adds the spice to our existence, but an extra dosage of spices can get you to burn your tongue. It is said more battles are lost due to indecisiveness than by lack of action!

So contradict where you can’t help but conclude where you can!
Spin where it is conducive, but be steady where it may get injurious!
Accept that idea that both exist in you taking you to your redemption...
Reject the notion that by sticking fiercely to one you may reach there without guilt!
Don't be afraid of contradictions, learn to live and be at peace with them!
Let’s celebrate our flaws and not hide them...
Welcome confusion for a change and not pretend to know it all...
Let’s be a little more us, than striving to be what we deem we should!

Love Is....

(Love seems to be in the air and it's not even February yet with its mad valentine flavor...Well, this here is a superb summary of what love is, contributed in all his profound genius by another dear friend...thank you for sharing this amazing interpretation that leaves no room for argument, apprehensions or doubt! Love to live or live to love....pretty much the same! Let's spread the good word!)


Well Love.....is.....ummmmm.....
Love has no bounds, like the open blue sky...like the ocean with its seamless and imaginary boundary called the horizon....or like the mirage, raring u to go ahead......like the intrigue of Bermuda Triangle..... or perhaps like the mysterious darkness which scares you but urges to find more.....Like an eternal light guiding us and at times blinding us.....like the forbidden path on which your feet take you with reluctance but also not wanting to turn back.....like the depth of the sea which you cannot fathom.....like the wrath of a raging bush fire which can turn greenery into simmering coal.....Like cool winds blowing from the Himalayas.....like a Tsunami which heads towards shores to sweep away everything in its path......like a painting full of vibrant colours.....like the innocence of a child....like the compulsive beating of the heart.....like the value of infinity!

Love can give birth to life...love can kill
love can hurt...love can love
love is good...love is bad
love gets the best out of us...and gets the worst out of us
love is bright....love is dark
love is pure...love is sinful
love is seductive and thrilling.....love is dangerous and harmful
love is peace....love is turmoil
love happens most unexpected....and the most unexpected happens in love
love needs no stage....love needs no age!

love is nothing but it is Everything......
I think the secret is unraveled....
LOVE IS GOD AND GOD IS LOVE

The Honeymoon that never ends...By Osho

(Another piece here forwarded by a dear friend of mine, which stirred me deeply and hence an attempt to allow it to reach to the chords of your heart too...a beautiful rendition of words and seamless thoughts by Osho...Enjoy, experience and evolve!And thank u dear friend for enriching me with this!)



LOVE IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP....
Love relates, but it is not a relationship. A relationship is something finished. A relationship is a noun; the full stop has come, the honeymoon is over. Now there is no joy, no enthusiasm, now all is finished. You can carry it on, just to keep your promises. You can carry it on because it is comfortable, convenient, cozy. You can carry it on because there is nothing else to do. You can carry it on because if you disrupt it, it is going to create much trouble for you… Relationship means something complete, finished, closed.

Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues– it is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun.

And why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship? Why are we in such a hurry? Because to relate is insecure, and relationship is a security. Relationship has a certainty; relating is just a meeting of two strangers, maybe just an overnight stay and in the morning we say goodbye. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow? And we are so afraid that we want to make it certain, we want to make it predictable. We would like tomorrow to be according to our ideas; we don't allow it freedom to have its own say. So we immediately reduce every verb to a noun.

You are in love with a woman or a man and immediately you start thinking of getting married. Make it a legal contract. Why? How does the law come into love? The law comes into love because love is not there. It is only a fantasy, and you know the fantasy will disappear. Before it disappears settle down, before it disappears do something so it becomes impossible to separate.

In a better world, with more meditative people, with a little more enlightenment spread over the earth, people will love, love immensely, but their love will remain a relating not a relationship. And I am not saying that their love will be only momentary. There is every possibility their love may go deeper than your love, may have a higher quality of intimacy, may have something more of poetry and more of godliness in it. And there is every possibility their love may last longer than your so-called relationship ever lasts. But it will not be guaranteed by the law, by the court, by the policeman. The guarantee will be inner. It will be a commitment from the heart, it will be a silent communion.

If you enjoy being with somebody, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. And there are a few flowers of love which bloom only after long intimacies. There are seasonal flowers too; within six weeks they are there, in the sun, but within six weeks again they are gone forever. There are flowers that take years to come, and there are flowers that take many years to come. The longer it takes, the deeper it goes. But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another heart. It has not even to be verbalized, because to verbalize it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment; eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said.

Forget relationships and learn how to relate.

Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted– that's what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful.

To think that you know your wife is very, very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the Ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, don't take it for granted.

And the man that you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same, but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. That's what I mean by relating.

Relating means you are always starting, you are continuously trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other's personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of his being. You are trying to unravel a mystery which cannot be unraveled. That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness.

And if you relate, and don't reduce it to a relationship, then the other will become a mirror to you. Exploring him, unawares you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation. Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful.

Hence I say relate. By saying relate, I mean remain continuously on a honeymoon. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, "I have known her," or, "I have known him." At the most you can say, "I have tried my best, but the mystery remains a mystery."

In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.

"Come to my boozelum angel"...The Unchartered World of Booze!

Hey this corny line was in a school chapter of ours I think in standard 7th or 8th...and yup it means exactly as it sounds...it spoke of a lady with very big “assets”, who would call this nervous little employee to her ‘boozelum’ every time he scored well at work...so much that the poor lad began to fear doing well...It’s better to crash than to be crushed under road rollers like those!
So after guffaws and sniggers about it, it became like an anthem for us...for we’d repeat it shamelessly anywhere and everywhere and to almost everyone...

Phew!
What can one say about an article that begins with digress to a completely unrelated territory?
This piece is not about boobs as you may have deemed with excited antennas all wired up...it’s about booze...and our world around it.
Boozelum and booze sound phonetically similar...hence the going off track justified!

Okies...confession time first...
How well do I know my booze before I begin to blabber about it?
Well, let me admit that I am a once in a blue moon drinker...all right all my sasuraal people who are reading this...please don’t succumb to a cultural shock...For tell me what is the more important principle to follow in life- the path of honesty or the path of abstinence...?
At least I am being honest here....!

So this piece is in dedication to all my talli friends...who love their drinks till death do them part...and god in his blessed designs has surrounded me with such high-spirited souls and what can I say...I’m only human and once in a while when I raise my hands to give up, it ends in a toast...hic, hic and cheers!

Thanks here to a dear friend who sent me an eight page email about the history of various ales which I thought could be filtered to form a basic premier for all of you night riders and party goers....

So what is alcohol exactly?
Hmm...the dictionary meaning would be something like...the drink obtained after breaking down of natural sugar of grain into CO2, ethanol and residual content...blah, blah, blah...
But since meaningful education is scarce and dictionary using an extinct phenomenon...the talli version would be... “Amrit hain ji...jisko pe ke insaan is duniya ka nahi rehta...” I am reciting the unedited versions of some of my dear drunk friends when they get so “high” that they touch the sky...others say, “Hmm...hum peete hain gham bhulane ko”... ya right and their gham being that they have to get up next day and live a life on the bed of roses till it’s party time again!

Further ahead though...some startling facts that you must know...
Like did you know that the different tastes, colours and flavours of any alcohol actually come from fruits and vegetables? Oho...why didn’t anyone tell this to my mom when she used to insist that I go on a fruit diet or gulp down that terrible concoction that she termed as vegetable soup...ughhh...? So bottom line fruits and vegetables are best for health in whatever form you guzzle them in...So thoda aur piyo....n piyo jee bhar ke;)

Whenever I go dancing or clubbing...which is tragically another equally blue moonish story (so many variations of blue around me...hmmm)
Anyways, whenever I do do that...dancing that is...I sometimes like my little shot of vodka to get my feet rolling on the dance floor, with a wilful and reckless I-care-a-damn-attitude...
Well, it so appears that this is not a character defect but that there’s an explanation for it...a rocket science type of a justification! The kick comes when alcohol is absorbed into the blood stream directly and slows down the central nervous system...See, I knew it...this was a conspiracy of my metabolic system for my soul and intensions are always impeccably pure. The alcohol blocks some of the commands that the brain sends to the body and hence reflexes and reactions are slower...

Hmm...So that explains why I flirt like mad when I get a bit tipsy!
And also why a very famous young man of my little town decided to strip off all his clothes to do a full monty in everyone’s view and to their horror, after being superbly drenched in a mixture of whatever was at the counter, at a new year’s bash...Of course he had to be physically thrown out whether his reflexes agreed to it or not and since then the famous has turned into the infamous..!

Here’s another great fact about alcoholic consumption capacity between males and females. Much to our wonderment, among our group of friends are such couples where the wives are constantly grasping glasses after glasses of exotic preparations in their dainty fingers and the husband sits in a corner tossing down orange juice after pleasing his lady love with the order of her choice...

It is said by experts in case of alcohol consumption, the bigger you are the better it is (hmm...we don’t need any experts to tell us THAT...! What have we been doing in all those blessed years of adulthood otherwise if not discovering that yet?)
Anyways, big people have larger quantity of blood, so the alcohol they take in is more diluted as it mixes with the blood...
Well, it’s settled then...please remind me to take only thin people when I host a cocktail party next...biases be damned!
And since women are generally smaller than men, the research says that their capacities are lesser...
Now this one is a laugh my ass off kinda funda!
The expert should come and have a look at some of the women I know who begin with a beer, settle in with a vodka...take the night high with an exotic cocktail and eventually call it a closure with vine...and yet remain a size zero...hmm...zero logic there!
Maybe the expert meant small of brains or forgot about being big in the assets for the women folk, which may tantamount to the same. Women are going to kill me for this!

But for you my dear readers the next time you want to impress someone with your knowledge of human manna or the drinks of heaven...chill, it’s not just a connoisseur’s job...yours truly, that is little miss moi, is at your service here...

The risky whisky:
This is broken down into single malt and the blended whisky...
Famous brand names that must be included in that words-at-my-thumbs list: Glenfiddich, Dalmore, Port Ellen...and blended ones like Bells, Teacher’s, Whyte Mackay and Johnnie Walker...
The blended ones are softer, lighter and more palatable...
And did you know... ‘Whisky’ is produced from the grains in Scotland and ‘whiskey’ is produced in USA or Ireland? It’s after all not a spelling blunder that the whole bunch of industrial big-shot morons made who didn’t study their grammar at school properly.
And also note American whiskey is called Bourbon too!

The cognac...reminds you of that famous dialogue from the flick Chandni... “Cognac sharaab nahi hote”...well my dear Sridevi ji...cognac sharaab he hote hain...made from wines of Poitou and matured in oak casks...hmm...I wonder how it tastes though!

And then my dear, dear vodka...
Now here’s an eye opener...vodka was used as medicine and gun powder when the human race evolved...Whoa...and then we say our ancestors were brainos!
Who uses good old vodka or rather wastes it in making gun powder?
Medicine is still understandable...as would my “sick for it” friends would vouch for....

And did you know there are many types of vodkas too?
Acorn, birch, calendula, cherry, chicory, ginger hazelnut, mint, pepper, mountain ash, peppermint, raspberry ,watermelon and many more...
Ho hai...and I have just had one of these...and that too I don’t know which one...How illiterate we can be sometimes!
I better check those bottles next time and know what is going inside of me and how it would come out the next day...
No puns intended!

Then there’s gin with a boring history, not so appealing to me either in all its effervescent temptation...so I’d let it pass...
Also there, are the tequila shots too...hmm...now that is an interesting variant. When one sees a bunch of happy go lucky friends...sprinkling salt on their knuckles and holding a cut lemon in one hand with a tequila shot in the other...there is something intoxicating about the very thrill of the whole drill...some blood pumping and adrenalin rush it is! So with the word “cheers” just as a race is commenced...the high-spirited troupe takes a mouthful down of the liquor and get into a trance like state till they shake their heads to jerk in or off the kick! Phew!
Hmm...So worth a try! The tequila my dearies for you are made from the agave plant but then who cares when they create an orgasmic burning down your throat taking you to places unheard of! But on a serious note, I guess we do need to actually save those trees and plants which the environmentalists have been telling us to do from ion years if we want the revelling to go on...see I care for the ecosystem too!

So it’s been a long revealing story but then when the night is young and long, stories are bound to happen! When something goes in, the repercussions are bound o come out! How sober am I while writing this or anything else that I do...well, I never really am...always high...high on life!

The Once in a lifetime Concept...

It is said that true love happens once in a lifetime...
Equally true is perhaps the notion that this “lifetime” happens several times in a year for some...!
Food for thought...?
Hmm...I’d say it is!

Monogamy in modern day’s relations is an expectation that is bound to counter rough seas or stony patches in its path ahead, for the lines of social acceptances are widening and moralities blurring. We as a communal structure are prone to more exposure to situations undreamed of before and hence more vulnerable. Yet in the complex pairing of relationships, how much is expecting too much and how much is letting the thread of our kites be relaxed so loose that breakage is inevitable? “Once in a lifetime” then...is it possible or rational in context of a life and is once really enough? And then when in all its glory it does happen...what next? Live happily ever after?

Well, it is said we are born with certain characteristics and develop others as we saunter ahead on our journeys. The basic constitution does not change...
The roving eye would do just that...drift rootlessly like the weed...
The guarding eye would do what it is meant to...safeguard, fortify, shield and be on a constant lookout...
Yet what is meant to happen, happens...!
Can there really be a blame game and also how justified is it when we have come to a hypothesis and realization that all of a person’s emotional, physical, mental and spiritual needs cannot be justified by just one another soul?

A dear friend of mine recently commented that after 21 years of age, we all officially enter the adult bracket and after that does age really matter? Aren’t we all in the same queue? Of course he’s in his mid twenties so I laughed off the matter thinking how this sound could or imply more deeply than the fact that he just said it for the heck of it? Well, it sounded and it did...!
We all really are in the same queue....!
We face similar circumstances meant for us to go through the natural grinding process of trials, tribulations and errors...yet some of us within these confines manage to digress- go off track. Are those who do better off than those who remain stuck to the models?
Who’s to say? But they sound happier...like this yuppie twenty something proudly asserts that he has fallen “truly” in love around 8-10 times and still feels he has more to give and take! Phew!

And then there are lesser mortals who keep searching for that even single brush with love in its truest and staunchest of mush avatars, so that our quest for the soul mate is a wee bit relaxed....And when this does happen, without the cosmos conspiring against us...how drained we feel after giving and giving... yet the young man says he always has more to give? A gender difference I might like to think it as, but the fact is it’s a conceptual difference where minds work in the way that we tell them to!

Is it again the fact coming here that we are attuned to a certain set of collective societal standards and agree to them as blindly as we do with like say the matters of religion? “This is how it is supposed to be and hence it’s the only right way”. We may gape in wonder or raise fingers at those who manage to trot on this blasphemous turf...perhaps because we ourselves are not getting opportunities to do so! A case of sour grapes? It is said that strange is the logic of the human mind...we try to compromise when we are wrong and justify when someone else is!
Yes, the mind is strange and we perhaps are stranger!

Another set of questions that remain unanswered which remain on my platter as my food for thought!
For if we were single individuals unattached to any fabric of shared structures perhaps the burden would have been lesser. But since we are not just XYZ... we are ABC’s son, DEF’s father, GHI’s wife, etc...The mind continues to debate, question and justify to itself.

Relations are really Reflections!

It is said by the great Deepak Chopra again that ‘All relations are mirrors of us’. When we like or dislike a person it is because deep down the other one is a reflection of who we are or could be, whether we realize it or it remains in our subconscious domain. It is not chance acquaintances that we are talking about here...it is our love-hate relationships that we choose to carry along with us as we move ahead on the journey of our lives.

It is easier to relate to someone affable...to proclaim yes, I like him because he is humble, noble, friendly and kind. It is almost an inference or implication that I ditto these qualities within me. But how could I relate to someone who is manipulative, selfish and greedy? I maintain a strictly hate-relationship with him because I detest these qualities...so how could I be that? You can be and you are! These are the qualities that may be invoked in you if perhaps you let off your guard or get trapped in a weaker moment. Traces of it you may already have discovered in the everyday working of your life...the slight hint of manipulation you did with your spouse to make him agree for a vacation or selfishness when you carried on with your professional calls when you were more required at home. The degrees may vary and you would have to be a brave man my friend if you declare at this juncture that you are a saint and far above these pitfalls whatever the case may be!

So how do we go about in our relations?
The good ones we cherish and make conscious endeavour to let it grow and blossom. For the others we must either ignore or tune down the hatred quotient. What fun and an easy life it would be if all of us came with tuner buttons or knobs inbuilt in our system. Imagine realizing that our tone has gone higher than was called for and all we need to do is turn the tuner button slightly left and voila, the job is done. Since unfortunately god in his greater designs decided against it, it’s once again left to our own onus to do so. Let’s make a start by looking at things from the other’s perspective- the 2nd person view.

Judge and react after placing yourself in his shoes and not just shoes my friend but his skin, his environment, his upbringing and values and thereby the structuring of his definite thoughts. The burden just might be easier. If his shoes are not such an amiable idea let’s take a 3rd person view-completely neutral... me as an outsider and in this situation, evaluating pros and cons of what’s at hand...what would be my surmise for the same? Perhaps then, the hatred we feel would not be so much as we began with!

Just remember that we are just looking into mirrors and what we see is what we are or could be...so let’s not be so harsh on the other one and take it up slowl