The Place.

When I go back I am unable to feel that same sense of warmth and belongingness. That place is not my home anymore, that place is not my own anymore. Those walls I rested on, those steps I sat on, those grounds I played on and the paths I walked on feel distant and hazy, like a love of long long ago.

It can never be mine again, there are strings of attachment sewn by a layer of detachment. Attachment to my memories of the place, and places within the place, It’s as if I have left some part of me in each small corner, and each trail I walked on has its own tale to tell. Valley taught me it is okay to be myself.

You would have sensed the confusion in what I just wrote. As I write this I am confused, flooded by emotions and feelings, which demand from me to be expressed. That was a time when I was strong and vulnerable. I could just let go and drift, walk away, not afraid of being judged, especially by myself.

I go there to be myself as much as I go there in search of myself.

Outside those gates, I have to be a puppet, the movements are my own, but are controlled by the one pulling my strings. You start racing to get ahead, and somewhere in this process leave yourself behind. When we are trying to hold on, we should just let go. We would not have to try, if it was ours.

Even though back then things were confusing, looking back I wish things now were as simple as they were then.

The smile when I needed one, the hug whose warmth took away the tears, the impromptu dance every morning, the songs that we sang, the boundaries we broke and learnt to respect. The lessons of life we learnt holding each others hands, lead us onto a path where we grew as individuals as we grew as one.

The memory of, the long midnight walkwith my loved one, the splendid moments of joy and vulnerability with my friends, the guilt and helplessness when things just don’t fall into place, going wrong but ending on the path of realization. All this taught me to love, to give, to understand and to look beyond. All this taught me to live.

It represents a time which will never come back again. It also represents a time whose echo will always resound all through my life. I often switch between these two sides, my mind and heart argue, none of them can win as both are right. The time will not come again but It shall always be.

I go back to experience the feelings of belonging, warmth, comfort, and most importantly the feeling of a place where I learnt to be myself. Even though I still cannot say I know who I am, at least I know I am on the right path. It was a place where I could fall and would not have to fear as I knew I would have people to help me rise, all I had to do was ask.

As I walked across school once evening, everything was empty and silent. The only sound I could hear was mine. This was the first time when I sensed the presence of silence.It was as if the whole Valley was resonating with silence. All the leaves were still. No one dared to disturb the silence. Not only did I sense the presence of silence, but also its strength.

The charm of watery sambhar, cold roties, tasteless vegetables and lime juice will always remain. The long nights spent talking about everything under the sun, along with a heavy dose of maggi and a prized loaf of bread will always remain. All the bathroom water fights, the impromptu dances we broke into, will always remain. The shoulder to cry on and the friends who would make you laugh, the fives eggs a week, the internet time, will always remain. Laughing out loud at the smallest things, sleeping soundly with a test tomorrow, bitching about the food, and getting a stomach upset after eating Pasta, will always remain. The evening coffee, and moonlight conversations, will always remain. Now I have everything, I have a whole city to myself, yet the enduring charm of staying in hostel will always remain.

Now we all in different corners of the world, or it at least feels like that. The faces I saw everyday, will not be seen for a long time to come, some connections will also weaken over time. We were all walking together back then, and now are running on our chosen paths. Some connections may not be as strong as the rest, but they are connections nonetheless, and, hence will always be a part of us. Ignored but not forgotten.

Dear friend,

You are running on a different path, but when I fall on mine you will be there to pick me up. That’s a unspoken promise we made, and which we will follow.

.

Conflict.

I just have a simmering emotion inside me, so I am writing in an attempt to come closer to it and peel out its various layers, and something tells me it’s going to take a long time to get to the bottom of this one. To come to terms with what we have we first have to come to terms with what we do not have. I have often observed that when we are in conflict with ourselves, we are searching for answers of questions from which the conflict arises. The search involves denial, acceptance, helplessness, acceptance of the helplessness and then if your lucky you may just get your answer. The longest step in this process is the acceptance of the helplessness and that is something we do are best to run away from. We try to push it away, to feel we are in control of ourselves, and just when we think that its gone, it just catapults itself back at us, repelling back the same force we suppressed it with. Then we realize we should not fight it, as it is meaningless to fight with what is in us. This realization brings us closer to what we are feeling, what is the conflict, it brings us closer to our self. When we overcome the helplessness we gain the power to approach the problem with no apprehensions, just a desire to experience it and let it be within or without us.

I say within us, because they are always some desires which remain unfulfilled, trying to attain them is like pushing a wall, however hard you may try, something’s cannot be moved and something’s may never change. I felt like using the word may, because after all it’s the hope for a better tomorrow that keeps us going. Unless we come to terms with this fulfillment we will never be able to value all that is fulfilled, within and around us. This brings me back where I started, to come to terms with what we have we first have to come to terms with what we do not have. Attachment is essential as it is the first step in the process of detachment.

I say without us, because after attachment, and the acceptance of the fact that a certain desire will not be fulfilled, the process of detachment starts, where we separate ourselves from the desire and all its trappings. The journey involves the realization that the desire is not a part of us, it is an experience we have gone through. When this happens we observe it, question its core, and finally are at peace with ourselves, and there ends the conflict. We have come to terms with it, now we have the vision to appreciate what we are, and what is.

The conflict has ceased to exist, the lesson has been learnt and understood, the path has ended, but the journey has started, the journey which starts from you and ends with your ‘self’, and this is just a step forward.

Thank you

Relationship

Thinking from the mind and not from the heart erodes the whole essence of true relationship. I use the word true because not all relationships are true to friendship.

A relationship is a mirror and a friend is a second self.

A relationship consists of two basic elements - Love and Attachment – Attachment  create’s the problems and Love solves them . Love is understanding that the other is yours, Attachment is wanting the other to be yours even though he already is. It is the desire for more that makes you expect, and as human nature prevails the more these expectations are met the more they rise. This creates a certain pressure on the bond, which can dilute its whole essence. If water flows out for long it can create a flood. We need to grow as one and as individuals, as a relationship has 3 identities - Me You and Us – there has to be a sense of equilibrium in the growth of 'Us' in order  to ensure a sense of sustenance in the interaction that takes place between ‘Me’ and ‘You’. If one grows more or should I say away from the other, a disconnect creeps in. At times people move apart as they just grow out of the bond, when this happen’s its best to accept and not deny. Denial is the first step to acceptance, if we see it like that it’s a process , however, if we continue to hold onto it we are stopping our growth, and slowing down our journey to discovering what we are, what we really want and what we are capable of . When you fall down and then stand up, chances are you won’t fall that way again.

When a relationship breaks down, it is not the love for the other individual you try to get over or forget, It is the attachment that you have to get over. Hence, there is pain and regret. The love will never fade as love transcends relationship and bond. I am not saying that you will not be able to love another, you definitely will. You will pick up your bags and move on but If that individual calls out to you, the bags will drop and you will go back not as a lover but as a friend, and that is the beauty of love.

Relationship is existence. Life is not about the destination, It’s not about the journey, Its about the connections you make along the way, and that is relationship.

Our closest relationship is with our self. Only when there is peace within us, we will find peace in the world.

:)

Closed Doors

Your thoughts stray in through closed doors,

The further I run,

 The closer you come,

There is a light at the end of the tunnel,

But the tunnels too long

How long can I go on

One stare and a few words,

Walking away and not looking back,

Leaving behind the silent noise,

Of shattering glass,

Light reflected everywhere,

And suddenly you were nowhere.

Those cold eyes

still haunt my dreams,

Those memories

still play out in my eyes,

Questions

still echo in what is left of me

I go as far as can,

You're still there,

I change everything around,

You're still there,

I cannot change myself,

You're still there.

Your wave caresses the dry sand,

and leaves it to dry.

Nameless

They are so many things in our life which will make us unhappy ,its like you rise to only end up falling, or if you turn the tables you only fall so you can rise higher,every road has its share of potholes,and as your travel across many roads you learn how to deal with the potholes.Not because you want to,its because you have to.

The worst part about losing something is that you only realize its value after it has left you., but if it has left you was it ever yours to be,or was it just a phase from which you learnt certain lessons and on completion of that chapter the phase ended to make you go through another one and enrich you even further.Each lesson or experience is a single yet integral piece of a puzzle.The journey of life is to connect you with your soul, it is a journey will with intense passion and pain.,rising and falling,and a lot of other things which words cannot describe.


At various points in our life we have all tried to be something that we are not in order to gain a sense of social acceptance and belonging.Even though by doing so we are moving away from our ''self'', we still do it, and as time progresses we get so used to being like that, we make it a part of our personality and it becomes a part of us.

They are two kinds of expectations,what we expect from ourselves and what the world expects from us.These two are two different branches of the same tree,as our views and opinions are influenced by our interpretation of society and our position in the society.I am expected to behave and carry our tasks in a particular manner and meet certain standards set by the society around me.What we want is something which we often keep to ourselves hoping that after this phase is over we will get time.


A though just went past my mind while I was walking home one day.'If money grew on trees would they have been cut...

Smile

Alongside fear, there is hope

Alongside reality,they are dreams.

There is often a difference between what we want to do and what we have to do,we often choose the latter under the cover that we will always have time to do what we would want.We have many paths to choose from and the journey of life is based on our realization of the choice of path that will be true to us.  Someday in the mist of time we look back and go through all those moments and experience desperation and elation,within a short time span.They are actually two sides of the same coin, you can only value joy after you have experienced sorrow.There is always a tinge of regret when we look back at certain memories of the past,the question 'What If.... keeps on lingering like a layer of dew on the leaf of those memories. What if that had happened,or What if that had not happened.They are certain questions to which we have no answer and through the realization of that we learn the process of letting go.That is something no one can teach you,It is something you learn as you mature with experience.People often relate maturity with the age of an individual,I believe maturity is related to the depth of emotion and experience a person has gone through.

What is it about the past that is so attractive that you often go back to it,and spend time in its vicinity,longing for the warmth you had got from a moment or trying to forget the pain another moment had given you.Even though a memory is painful you still go back to it,that is something i could never understand,why do I think about something that has caused me pain, Is it in a futile attempt to get over it or am I still in the hope that it did not happen.They are some rare memories which each of us keep in our Pandoras Box. Firmly shut and only for our eyes.

I have noticed that whenever I write as I progress a note of pessimism sneaks into my words,so to overturn that effect I would like to share this wonderful poem with you from the movie 'Udaan' .  Something about this poem just makes me smile. I hope you do to. Till next time....

 Chhoti-chhoti chhitrayi yaadein

Bichhi hui hain lamhon ki lawn par.

Nange pair unpar chalte-chalte

Itni door chale aaye

Ki ab bhool gaye hain –

Joote kahan utaare the.

Aedi komal thi, jab aaye the.

Thodi si naazuk hai abhi bhi.

Aur nazuk hi rahegi

In khatti-meethi yaadon ki shararat

Jab tak inhe gudgudati rahe.

Sach, bhool gaye hain

Ki joote kahan utaare the.

Par lagta hai,

Ab unki zaroorat nahin."

Disjointed Path

"The romanticism fades when your eyes open to reality''

when a new phase in your life starts,it commences with a ''honeymoon period''. You are optimistic and you see the world from a rose tinted window,issues seem trivial and time is abundant.You have things to smile about as everything looks nice from the outside.Sooner or later,reality sets in and the grind begins.They are breaks in the middle but the story remains the same.

We always search for things to hold on to, is it because we are weak to just be with ourselves and exist with no baggage or is it that these things give us a reason to live.Would life be worth living if we had no goals and dreams?,have you ever thought what drives you to wake up and go to work everyday,are you following your dreams or carrying out your responsibility to people that matter to you, well more often than not it is the latter.

Well on the other hand do we even know are goals,as our thoughts are constantly changing,our image of the world and ourselves changes as well, we learn a new lesson and/or undergo a new experience each day . So are we following a defined path or  walking on a set of disjointed paths connected by our sense of self.

The destination of life is death.

Its the journey that matters

Lets end with some words of Bob Dylan

'May your hands always be busy,

'May you feet always be swift,

'May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift,

'May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on ever rung,

'And may you stay,Forever Young.

Thought Flow

This is my first blog and I have nothing to say right now,or rather I do not know which thoughts of mine should i put forth first as they are too many of them scrambling through my mind, when I start to right about one another seems more alluring.

Yesterday I was walking by a flyover and I saw a girl who was sleeping on a footpath,it was raining heavily and she only had a thin blanket to protect herself yet she still slept, I looked the other side and a BMW went past. Growth is the BMW, whereas development will be when you and I rise to bridge the gap between the two India's that exist today. One which we try out best to shun and ignore, hoping it would suddenly disappear someday soon,and the other which we all are or aspire to be in.

Does the Capitalism in our economy prevent the eradication of poverty?! I think to some extent it does as the economy in India is largely based on the availability of poor & cheap labor and we need this tool to grow,such growth will not bring about development but is definitely showing us the need for development.When we read the papers the figures of Inflation,Poverty and Unemployment are just figures to us as they hardly have an effect on us but for millions out their it is the story of their life in one figure.

A very popular saying goes as follows ' Ignorance is Bliss ' is that true or just something a lazy man invented to hide his shortcomings.I have been through times where i used this to support my behavior and at times I would cringe seeing some one else's ignorance,so when i say this it does not mean I am ignorant, truth is we all are,we just choose to remember and see what suits us and would want to see what we like to see.Sometimes we need to look inside ourselves and see beyond. As the Beatles said 

''When you look beyond yourself

You may just find,

Peace of mind is waiting there''

We are just a drop of paint,

yet sometimes the whole painting

Amen.