There are these moments in your life when you feel a lump in your throat. You like it or not, these moments are meant to happen. You can call it destiny or choice or just….life.
A time in life which echos a moment when you have to depart from some one you love, someone ordinary who has effortlessly created extraordinary memories for you and with you, someone with whom you have spent an unforgettable time in your life, someone with whom you could have just spent a few months but who makes you feel like it was forever, someone with whom there was this vibe you just melted into and it makes it hard for you to believe that it occurred so unnoticed and you gelled into the relationship so smoothly.
In my personal opinion such relationships happen rarely. It is sweet serendipity. It also seems to come with a price tag of ‘all good things come to an end’. It is this period of parting ways that halts you on your track. It is this period you see the sombre side of life. This is when you have a smile on your face and mist in your eyes, a longing heart and a racing mind.
I do not know if I will ever happen to meet this ‘someone’ again in my lives journey.
I do not know if this ‘someone’ thinks the same way about me. I do not know what time and life has in store for me. My mind wiggles with this uncertainty but my heart is consoled by the fact that I have met such people and that they part and leave me with loving memories to cherish…….
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
"For you, a thousand times over"
Each time I think about the story narrated by Khaled Hosseini in his book, ‘The Kite Runner’ only one statement rings in my head -“For you, a thousand times over”….
Have you ever told this to someone…or at least felt this way for someone?
I am amazed and ashamed at the same time when I read about someone who can do anything for the one they love; anywhere, anytime….for a thousand times over….and with such grave intensity that it makes it hard to believe(If you have read the book, you will understand how intense the intensity I am referring to is).
We all have a lot of friends, enough to categorise them in a social network site. How many in that list have made you experience friendship so disconnected from adultery, so simple, so genuine, so delightful, and so innocent? How many friendships have you nurtured your heart out to? For how many have you gone that extra mile with minimal expectations of acknowledgment? For how many have you replied lack of reciprocation with continual stoicism? For how many have you passed situations when you have not wondered ‘Why should I always do it?’ For how many have you dared to go past norms just to have ‘been there and done that’? For how many have you broken your routine, just to experience the aberrant? For how many have you kept aside what is important to you? For how many have you not given lame excuses to avoid moments of togetherness? For how many have you dared risks just to keep your friendship soaring high? For how many have you done simple things to avoid complex consequences?
Friendship is like love…you never know when it happens and you can never measure its growth…all you ever have to know is it shapes your existence and that you should forever treasure its grace.
Have you ever told this to someone…or at least felt this way for someone?
I am amazed and ashamed at the same time when I read about someone who can do anything for the one they love; anywhere, anytime….for a thousand times over….and with such grave intensity that it makes it hard to believe(If you have read the book, you will understand how intense the intensity I am referring to is).
We all have a lot of friends, enough to categorise them in a social network site. How many in that list have made you experience friendship so disconnected from adultery, so simple, so genuine, so delightful, and so innocent? How many friendships have you nurtured your heart out to? For how many have you gone that extra mile with minimal expectations of acknowledgment? For how many have you replied lack of reciprocation with continual stoicism? For how many have you passed situations when you have not wondered ‘Why should I always do it?’ For how many have you dared to go past norms just to have ‘been there and done that’? For how many have you broken your routine, just to experience the aberrant? For how many have you kept aside what is important to you? For how many have you not given lame excuses to avoid moments of togetherness? For how many have you dared risks just to keep your friendship soaring high? For how many have you done simple things to avoid complex consequences?
Friendship is like love…you never know when it happens and you can never measure its growth…all you ever have to know is it shapes your existence and that you should forever treasure its grace.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Holy Grail
Dreaming; day-dreaming about home
To all dear memories, it is my sacred dome
Without a second thought, it is my holy grail
Every cherishing moment-to forget, I fail
When I think of home, it is always with a smile
About every dear person, I can talk as long as a mile
Between my excitement and anxiety there is a fine thin line
At home forever there is sunshine
Faces of family and friends, to see I deeply desire
When my legs give away, home is where I will retire
To all that is a part of my home, I raise a toast – happy and sweet
Home is where my journey and my destiny meet
To all dear memories, it is my sacred dome
Without a second thought, it is my holy grail
Every cherishing moment-to forget, I fail
When I think of home, it is always with a smile
About every dear person, I can talk as long as a mile
Between my excitement and anxiety there is a fine thin line
At home forever there is sunshine
Faces of family and friends, to see I deeply desire
When my legs give away, home is where I will retire
To all that is a part of my home, I raise a toast – happy and sweet
Home is where my journey and my destiny meet
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Flights of Feelings - 'Terminal' gestures
Frequency of some good things is such a rarity. Some other good things are always around; we may just be candidly blind. Gentle physical gestures like a hug, a pinch on the cheeks, holding hands, and a kiss more than often speak volumes in just those precise moments of their action. They can emotionally rejuvenate you. They can spring some oblivious but obvious facts. They can simply dampen your eyes and put your emotional stability to test.
Just at the departure terminal in the airport, moments before my friend waved good-bye for ‘who-knows-how-long’ geographical separation, we exchanged hugs. Hugs so affectionate and so emotionally charged. A hug which felt like a special gift box; every moment we shared wrapped safely in it, laced with a ribbon of naïve hopes and promises to create extended memories of togetherness and fun. Some hugs I am guessing are just impossible to part from. You just wish to stay locked, relishing the breeze of peace that your soul experiences with a plain prayer that that moment freezes in time. It is at this point I wondered how often we get to experience such warm moments. How fortunate we should be to have such people around who can render such warmth. Sometimes for genuine moments like this we may well have to wait for years. I have read the book The Alchemist by P C where in he talks so vividly about signs or omens. I consider these gestures to be humble signs that happiness and love is all around me and more often I tend to believe that this is what keeps me going….
Just at the departure terminal in the airport, moments before my friend waved good-bye for ‘who-knows-how-long’ geographical separation, we exchanged hugs. Hugs so affectionate and so emotionally charged. A hug which felt like a special gift box; every moment we shared wrapped safely in it, laced with a ribbon of naïve hopes and promises to create extended memories of togetherness and fun. Some hugs I am guessing are just impossible to part from. You just wish to stay locked, relishing the breeze of peace that your soul experiences with a plain prayer that that moment freezes in time. It is at this point I wondered how often we get to experience such warm moments. How fortunate we should be to have such people around who can render such warmth. Sometimes for genuine moments like this we may well have to wait for years. I have read the book The Alchemist by P C where in he talks so vividly about signs or omens. I consider these gestures to be humble signs that happiness and love is all around me and more often I tend to believe that this is what keeps me going….
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Writer's work and a reader's delight
Among all the habits I have inculcated over time and age, I am proud of one – the habit of reading. Reading is one thing I enjoy to a very great extent. Not surprisingly there is a gush of joy, (may be felt and understood only by me) each time I buy a book and add to my collection. I am not tied to any fixed reading pattern. More often I see myself entangled in a web of questions and sometimes deep thoughts which seek clarification or profound reasoning coupled with a tinge of delightful debate. This is precisely when some books and their comprehensive content have played their rightful role. I owe a part of my maturity and outlook towards life to so many authors who have contributed to my philosophical augmentation but whom I have never met and may never, even in the future. I have observed, my pattern of buying books is in some peculiar fashion guided by intuition. This may sound funny and exaggerated; but how I feel when I touch a book for the first time, the message in the air when I glide my thumb on the edge of all the pages in the book and my intimating eagerness to buy a book even if I have to wait for a copy to become available- have been the books which have answered some of my long unanswered and troubled questions.
Ok! Getting to the core of this post, all I intend to do is being cheeky! Cheeky in a harmless sense; if I may confess. I will be listing some statements or quotes in books I have read or in the process of reading. This will be a list of remarks in the book which I have read and re-read which have a soulful meaning and some camouflaged answers.
PS: Nevertheless, each book speaks the writer’s mind, choice and thoughts. An open minded reader is a writer’s serendipity.
Book: Shantaram
Author: Gregory David Roberts
“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them.
Some things are just so sad that your soul can only do the crying for you."
“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that is all there is: love and its duty; sorrow and its truth. In the end that is all we have to hold on tight until the dawn.”
“Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.”
“Fates way of beating us in a fair fight is to give us warnings that we hear, but never heed”
“One of the ironies of courage and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone”
“Without forgiveness there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.”
Hmm...Cultivating a forgiving nature is a tough challenge. If at least on 6 occasions out of 10 you were able to forgive and forget, it is a feat in itself.
I reckon framing words like love, hope, sorrow, tears, forgiveness (which are more than just words) into such pragmatic and poignant statements is a rare and immensely creditable style of a genuinely gifted writer.
Ok! Getting to the core of this post, all I intend to do is being cheeky! Cheeky in a harmless sense; if I may confess. I will be listing some statements or quotes in books I have read or in the process of reading. This will be a list of remarks in the book which I have read and re-read which have a soulful meaning and some camouflaged answers.
PS: Nevertheless, each book speaks the writer’s mind, choice and thoughts. An open minded reader is a writer’s serendipity.
Book: Shantaram
Author: Gregory David Roberts
“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them.
Some things are just so sad that your soul can only do the crying for you."
“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that is all there is: love and its duty; sorrow and its truth. In the end that is all we have to hold on tight until the dawn.”
“Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.”
“Fates way of beating us in a fair fight is to give us warnings that we hear, but never heed”
“One of the ironies of courage and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone”
“Without forgiveness there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.”
Hmm...Cultivating a forgiving nature is a tough challenge. If at least on 6 occasions out of 10 you were able to forgive and forget, it is a feat in itself.
I reckon framing words like love, hope, sorrow, tears, forgiveness (which are more than just words) into such pragmatic and poignant statements is a rare and immensely creditable style of a genuinely gifted writer.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Flights of Feelings - Foreward
Not surprisingly, a thought or idea just popped in my mind. Its not weird that each one of us would love or dream of having something we look forward to; in terms of an upcoming event, a new arrival in the family, a new materialistic or spiritual pursuit, a new start or a life changing decision. Some may agree that our lifestyle – I precisely mean the bulky element of ‘routines’ is what propels this anticipation. I beg to stay astray from debating weather this anticipation is good or bad – at least at this point in my post [Haha]
So! Coming back to my idea in the first statement, I am attempting to capture my feelings or moods (My creator only knows how moody I can get!) about my visit to my homeland after exactly 2 years. This has surely become an event which my family and I are looking forward to. We blocked our flight tickets in Feb and I got my leave confirmed at work in April for our visit in December! Some planning, huh? Christmas is a time when many of my friends plan to visit family and friends back home. Each one of us has a narration for every visit. I beg to stay astray from scripting the narrations for the same- at least at this point in my post [haha]
We own the pleasure of escorting friends to and from the airport owing to our geographical proximity to the airport. I enjoy these short trips. Just last week a close friend headed home. I deeply understand how eager he was to hop on to the flight. (To be read as – how eager we were to see him off [Wink]) One month of no intrusion [Hehe] Married for an interesting 2 years, Swithesh and I very delightfully (To be read as – intentionally) scared our friend who hopefully but helplessly banked on us duo for post marital advice! So this briefly gives an idea of what makes our trip to the airport interesting. The flow of emotions, excess baggage commotion, take off coffee take-away and all the tangy jokes leaves me flushed, I tell ya!
Not surprisingly, yet another idea is standing up on my mind’s bench [haha] I would write this tale in parts. Sounds ok to me. Hope the words don’t get constipated in some parts [wide teeth display grin]; it happens to me. Sometimes I just don’t get what I call ‘the flow’ (to write, of course). This can be saddening and frustrating. Period.
So! Coming back to my idea in the first statement, I am attempting to capture my feelings or moods (My creator only knows how moody I can get!) about my visit to my homeland after exactly 2 years. This has surely become an event which my family and I are looking forward to. We blocked our flight tickets in Feb and I got my leave confirmed at work in April for our visit in December! Some planning, huh? Christmas is a time when many of my friends plan to visit family and friends back home. Each one of us has a narration for every visit. I beg to stay astray from scripting the narrations for the same- at least at this point in my post [haha]
We own the pleasure of escorting friends to and from the airport owing to our geographical proximity to the airport. I enjoy these short trips. Just last week a close friend headed home. I deeply understand how eager he was to hop on to the flight. (To be read as – how eager we were to see him off [Wink]) One month of no intrusion [Hehe] Married for an interesting 2 years, Swithesh and I very delightfully (To be read as – intentionally) scared our friend who hopefully but helplessly banked on us duo for post marital advice! So this briefly gives an idea of what makes our trip to the airport interesting. The flow of emotions, excess baggage commotion, take off coffee take-away and all the tangy jokes leaves me flushed, I tell ya!
Not surprisingly, yet another idea is standing up on my mind’s bench [haha] I would write this tale in parts. Sounds ok to me. Hope the words don’t get constipated in some parts [wide teeth display grin]; it happens to me. Sometimes I just don’t get what I call ‘the flow’ (to write, of course). This can be saddening and frustrating. Period.
Friday, August 31, 2007
The Awesome Twosome
I can still hear those cute little sparrows chirping at the crack of dawn. They woke me up, but this never made me angry. I felt their excitement contagious.
One trim and smart figure holds my hand in his and off we go hand in hand to explore new experiences nature had in store for us that warm morning. The route we adopt is strangely familiar. ‘The Golf Ground’ is one fascinating place. I obediently stand with this figure well draped in a coat and together we watch the gifted players playing golf on the tender green bed. From a source unknown a golf ball drops right next to us. We wait. Nobody claims it. The hand which held me releases grip and pockets the ball. We move on, hand in hand again. I constantly eye the round lump in his pocket. We reach ‘The Guest House’. I am left free in this semi-circular area adorned by huge trees and tiny butterflies. The figure with a scarf around his neck keeps an eye on me as I play my own game in nature’s company. He stands facing the Sun; arms wrapped across his chest enjoying a sun-bath.
Once again, we lock our hands in each others and head back home greeting friends on the way. A restless and curious mind, I still have an eye on his pocket. We reach home. That calm and resolute figure changes his attire, mounts his reading glasses on his sharp nose and drowns into the newspaper.
A soft and caring voice then calls for me. I run towards her. She aids me in the shower and religiously teaches me a few ‘shlokas’ which I recite with eyes tight shut. The short but sweet lady seems satisfied. Grumbling with love she decks me up with ribbons, tie, belt, socks and shoes. She wipes my mouth one final time with her sari whose fragrance speaks volumes in deep silence. I reach the door. The strict-looking figure holding the newspaper eyed the lovely lady and then revealed that the golf ball was in my cupboard. There was a twinkle in his handsome eyes and radiance on her face as my lips unfurled a big smile.
Coming back to the present, recovering from nostalgia I look around incisively.
The firm hand that held me was those of my grandfathers and the gentle voice the called me was that of my grandmothers. The warmth in his hands and the fragrance of her sari still linger around me……..
One trim and smart figure holds my hand in his and off we go hand in hand to explore new experiences nature had in store for us that warm morning. The route we adopt is strangely familiar. ‘The Golf Ground’ is one fascinating place. I obediently stand with this figure well draped in a coat and together we watch the gifted players playing golf on the tender green bed. From a source unknown a golf ball drops right next to us. We wait. Nobody claims it. The hand which held me releases grip and pockets the ball. We move on, hand in hand again. I constantly eye the round lump in his pocket. We reach ‘The Guest House’. I am left free in this semi-circular area adorned by huge trees and tiny butterflies. The figure with a scarf around his neck keeps an eye on me as I play my own game in nature’s company. He stands facing the Sun; arms wrapped across his chest enjoying a sun-bath.
Once again, we lock our hands in each others and head back home greeting friends on the way. A restless and curious mind, I still have an eye on his pocket. We reach home. That calm and resolute figure changes his attire, mounts his reading glasses on his sharp nose and drowns into the newspaper.
A soft and caring voice then calls for me. I run towards her. She aids me in the shower and religiously teaches me a few ‘shlokas’ which I recite with eyes tight shut. The short but sweet lady seems satisfied. Grumbling with love she decks me up with ribbons, tie, belt, socks and shoes. She wipes my mouth one final time with her sari whose fragrance speaks volumes in deep silence. I reach the door. The strict-looking figure holding the newspaper eyed the lovely lady and then revealed that the golf ball was in my cupboard. There was a twinkle in his handsome eyes and radiance on her face as my lips unfurled a big smile.
Coming back to the present, recovering from nostalgia I look around incisively.
The firm hand that held me was those of my grandfathers and the gentle voice the called me was that of my grandmothers. The warmth in his hands and the fragrance of her sari still linger around me……..
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