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!