LOVE *

*conditions apply

In an extremely commercialized world where every one is trying to make a quick buck, to pull the wool over other peoples eyes, the "small print" has become an expected thing.In fact "conditions apply" has become a reassuring thing that says to the public"we are cheating you, but we are being upfront about it.so dont worry".So if we see a deal which is too good to be true , and we dont see this small star, we hear warning bells in our head.What are they hiding???

By now you must be wondering if i mis-labled this post.Well...i didn't.

The other day , a heated argument with the other half (yes ! we are human! we fight) had cooled down into sullen silence ... Both of us knew we had said too much , unnecessarily.And we couldn't take it back.

That was when i began to wonder if the promise of unconditional love was dangerous.yes! you heard me right.
Why say , i will love you for for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, come hell or high water.?? And THEN let the poor fellow/felli down by going and doing the exact opposite at the first given opportunity?

Why not say look dude, I will be your best friend , i will support you through everything and you will love me...but *conditions apply...there will be times i will not be myself...there will be times i will be bitchy or unfair or irrational....there will be the times we might not "love" each other (we are not masochists after all)...BUT IT IS OK...because when we bought each other we KNEW what the small print was...But we still went ahead with the sale.Because despite all the faults the product was still too good to be true.

Why should we try to pretend when we advertise??

Why cant there be honesty among cheats???

ON HAVING CHOSEN.......

So,yes i was at crossroads few days back and now i have chosen.And how did i choose?not by trying to figure out which door had the jackpot but impulsively.(true to tradition,always)and guess what a month or so into this new path i have found quite a few small jackpots.

The man i would want to share my life with,a great job opportunity,a smooth transition from an old life into the new and most importantly the chance to be independent.

I have been yearning for quite sometime to test the strength of wings that have lain dormant.I have wanted to know what it felt like to fly around in the exposed sky.It wasn't just the trills but also the dangers that attracted me.I wanted to experience it ,and couldn't wait to be out there.

Now i AM there and i realize that i can never be a bird.In fact i find myself to be a kite.And i am happy to be one.i am happy with the people holding my strings and keeping me anchored to India.It gives me a warm feeling to think that they will be there for me when i am done with my adventure.And though i am happy to be a flying kite now, i know soon i will want to return home.

To all the people who make me call it home.

Crossroads??… I wish!!!

Weird title? Who wishes for crossroads right…well read on if you please.

So there I was.Back in my rut.Not really bored but not really content.I waited for the next change in my life eagerly.You know those old ladies who sit around and blabber , that blabber which years later is called by a new name, proverb? Well next time LISTEN to the blabber. One such blabber that I have never bothered to heed is “be careful what you wish for…you might actually get it.”

So now instead of going straight to the facts and laying out what it is EXACTLY that has troubled me, I {as is habit} will take the abstract route. :D

Right.

So what do you do when you get to cross roads in life? And what do you do when life asks you a more complex question than “what do you do when you get to crossroads in life?”? Ok I know this is a little too abstract even for me.To put it more simply, what if life doesn’t ask you ,do you want to go left or right.But instead your conversation with life goes like

Life:-“So you have been walking this path for sometime now eh?how’s that working out for you”

You:-“hmmm not so bad…not so good…why did you have something else in mind?”

Life:-“Wellll…There IS this Fork coming up ahead on the road.Looks interesting.You might miss it unless you look out for it.”

You:-”thanks for the heads up buddy.I Owe you one”

So whistling you walk along , keeping a keen lookout for this other road.Little did you know that life has a wicked sense of humor.

Suddenly out of the fog you notice a fork in the road. As you turn from your path to look at this new road, the fog clears a little. You realize that this new road Does seem interesting. You are about to decided whether to go ahead or not when you happen to see another path forking out this path. And a little while later another path appears.You stop.Confused.You close your eyes to stop more roads from appearing.

Your task is SO much more difficult now. How do you decide which road to take when all the roads look the same! This suddenly seemed like the “which door has the jackpot?” problem.

Now this is where Life’s cheekiness comes into the picture. IF only you had been left alone to meander down the path, you would not have noticed so many paths and hence would not have known that you were missing out on anything.

Now you could just randomly pick one of these roads and either hit the jackpot or end up with nothing. And If You DO end up with the jackpot {nah….it never ends at the jackpot, but only always at the promise of one …sooo moot point}.And if you end up with nothing you will feel miserable thinking of all the other roads you could have chosen.

Now you could also stay on the same path. But the memory of the other roads with the promise of a jackpot at the end will make this path bitter. So nothing you achieve will be able to compete with the ““what if” I had traveled down one of THOSE golden roads?”

Now believe it or not I am at that junction in my life. Wishing I had never wished for change. Wishing I had Left or right instead of, 10deg 30deg 59deg…oh you get the picture.

Will I decide to stick to the trodden path? OR will I follow one of the other roads hoping it leads to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? I don’t know.

LIFE! I will get back at you for this! You prankster!!

SAR PASS 2008

How many people get to brush their teeth while looking at snow capped mountains? How many people would not notice the mountains and would be lost in the irritation at having to brush with ice cold water?

Confused? So was i.

Let me start where it all began.

I was sick of Bangalore.I was sick of the routine;the rut my life had fallen into.I couldn’t stand taking the same route to work day after day, listening to the same music seeing the same faces.My whole being screamed at anything familiar. That was it! I needed a break! A real one!

I had always wanted to go on a YHAI trek(Youth hostel association of India).This was the best time to get away from it all.Asking around we finally zeroed in on Sar pass as our destination.So the three of us headed out of Bangalore on may 2nd .

From the minute we stepped onto Delhi soil it was new territory for us.Everything was different.Bangalore was already fading in my mind

After catching up with a few friends we boarded the Himachal tourism bus to our base camp.We met up two more guys who were going to the same camp but registering on 3rd may instead of our 4th may. This chance meeting made us change our batches from 4th may to 3rd on reaching Base camp.The trip was mostly uneventful with the highpoint of listening to songs of heart break. We went from wanting to murder the driver to slowly nodding off to the tunes of”Maine tumse pyaar jo kiya, maine tho hein zeher hi piya” etc etc.

On reaching base camp we explored the tiny town of Kasol.It was picturesque and peaceful. And as the guys had enough eye candy we all spent a pleasant time there.

Then with the customary YHAI send off we left to start on our trek.I think it was my first time riding on top of the bus. It was an awesome experience. We had unrestricted view of the surrounding nature with the underlying thrill of danger in the form of electric cables and rock overhangs.I was soaking everything in.Bangalore was far from my mind and my heart rejoiced.

What do I say about the next few days that would do justice to the whole experience?I can just describe the rollercoaster of emotions that we went through.

Initially it was complacency that the trek was not hard enough, which soon changed into groans of “Oh God!when are we reaching higher camp?!”Joy at finding a banner welcoming us to higher camp.Resting in the lap of mother nature.Trying to not get irritated at continuously having to was our lunch boxes and tumblers through the day with icy water.Eating simple delicious food and feeling satisfied.Shivering in sleeping bags while praying for the sun to rise quickly, and at the same time dreading having to walk after a sleepless night.Waking up for natures call and missing the sound of a flush.Packin, lining up and off again.Stopping every now and then to breathe.Getting used to the feel of a walking stick in your twenties. Getting hot maggi and omlets for lunch. Drinkin from cool streams without having to worry about disease. First joyous encounter of snow which would later turn into waiting for the last sight of snow.Making feet,that are used to walk on tarred roads,to walk on slippery snow. Fearing that you would slip with every step and then ironically slipping because you stepped fearfully.Getting bored with constant good weather and hoping for a snow storm and then ACTUALLY getting one.Thinking of sayings like”be careful what you wish for…………”

Trudging in snow for hours.Feeling like the lease on your toes and fingers are going to run out anytime shortly.Having to trek for food water AND loo.

Reaching points of no return where you don’t want to go ahead and you cant go back.Wishing for the familiarity and warmth of home and hearth.Being strong for others , knowing they would be strong for you when you couldn’t be.

The jubilant feeling of having reached the top.The feeling that this walk up memory lane would not be easily forgotten.The jubilation wearing off on realizing that the trek was far from over.

Facing demons that you had rather never face.Not being able to stand up to your fears.Dejection at not being able to conquer something. Spending a restless night in one camp before unexpectedly stumbling into heaven.Banduk tatch , our last higher camp.

It was the perfect end to our tumultuous few days.It was a place where you could come to peace with yourself.Where you could just lose yourself in nature without having to pay a heavy price.Where you could sit for hours without moving a muscle and yet end up feeling like you had traveled the seven seas.
It was at this camp that I finally found peace. I could finally appreciate the ironies of life without a single cynical thought.

As I watched the sun rise on Banduk tatch, the last day of our adventure, I felt changed. A light that had died inside me in the disillusionment that cloaked the city, was relit. It was a beacon I could look at when I got lost on the mundane paths of life and feel happy again. The sun rose up and as I felt the warm rays touch my frozen skin , I knew.

I knew that when I walked again on the dusty corridors of life this would be the memory that I would cherish.Forever.

Harsha

;)

ANGER

Mark twain once said “In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.”

I agree. When you are angry let it out. If you don’t, it begins to breed with you and starts to fester.

Do not carry a grudge.A grudge knows only one form of mathematics. Exponetial multiplication.

But. When and where do you take out your anger. Think of anger like electricity. Don’t let it conduct. Take it out in the absence of other media or in the presence of insulators.

Ok did I just sound like I have lost in the last para? Well. I haven’t.Take it from personal experience that the above said words will save you and the people around you a lot of grief.

Anger is a very personal thing. Cause unlike happiness , we don’t WANT to be angry. Yet it keeps emerging out of from within us. Now if you just let it out when no one is around then you are definitely better off than holding a grudge, but you will not have any feedback.You will not know what to do to either avoid such circumstances again or even If the anger was justified in the first place or not.

So now the next logical step would be to have a wall to bounce off your anger.But be careful.There are some people around whom you should never show your anger. Cause they cannot handle it. They will either try to change the subject, try to undermine the cause for the anger or try to say stuff like its never wise to get angry. What do they know! Stay away they are the ones with volcanoes inside them.

But there are some sounding boards who will know the person you are. They will stop you if you are not in the right and give you another perspective .And If you ARE right then you again have adivse on how to avoid it in future.Be happy with the few sounding boards that you can get. Do NOT try to make everyone a wall to beat your head against.

Some will crack, some will make you bleed.

Of foolishness and forgiveness

Yes I was a fool.Yes that’s an understatement.No I will not elaborate.

What does one say when the magnitude of their stupidity surpasses everything they know?When they look in the mirror and a stranger glares back reproachfully?When their conscience berates them for letting it down?When you expect people to look through you because of what you have done , but then they MAKE you look AT you?When they care enough to have faith that it was not you but your demons that they saw?

And what exactly does one say when the weight of others' forgiveness weighs more than the weight of your foolishness?

Nothing.

IN SEARCH OF THE SELF

People, who I know and respect, tell me that they are in search of the ultimate truth. Or if not that , then in search of some meaning and the purpose of our very existence.

My mind is such that it would be interested in answers to these questions.But something inside me tells me that the answers are most likely to be so simple it would let the seeker down.

Moreover , I dont think i can even begin to understand the universe when i dont understand myself.I have heard time and again that no one can understand you better than yourself.True .But you can add:- and you are much more than you can understand.

I know how i would react to particular stimuli.But i don't know why.I can break down the emotions into tiny segments but i don't know where they originated.Ialso realized a few days back that i had started a scavenger hunt for emotions.I was a starved vulture looking out for any scrap of meat and then falling on it and trying to relish it for as long as possible. Good or Bad wouldn't matter.

Whenever i felt something...felt anything...be it negative or positive i would nurture it and try to add fuel to it until not even a shadow of the real emotion remained.I would think up situations and imagine how i would react just to simulate the feeling.

confusing? But think of it like this. Suppose your fingers go numb suddenly, wouldn't you do anything possible to get some feeling back even if it meant hurting them by pinching them? Simple as it gets isn't it.this insane urge to feel. But i fear, what happens when your fingers stop feeling numb. Would all the damage be irreversible?

Then again is the fear a real one or is it another sad attempt to feel?? how will i ever know? i will never know....

Impossibly Human

How many studies have there been on human relationships? How many "experts" have claimed that they have the solutions to human dilemas ? How many humans have proved exceptions to all the studies above? How many studies are there to "study the studies"? alright! i will stop.The answer anyway is either innumerable or i dont know.

Personally this topic has occupied most of my thought time. And like walking along a pebbled path and turning over the pebbles to find something new, i have always found a new train of thought for the same topics.But the end point of most of these tangents are that we humans are utterly ridiculous. We are cursed . We go round and round and round in a million circles.Each of these circles dont make sense in the first place.So they definitely dont make sense when the connect with circles of other human beings.The pattern of our lives end up looking like the mindless doodle of an infant.{maybe even that is saying too much}

Ok.Pause.Why am i rambling so much?Well an incident occured today which totally surprised me.There is this old security guard of a our neighbouring hospital. Well now he would have been totally unremarkable except for one thing.His rulership of the parking lot. He keeps moving the board"hospital parking only" towards our office thus stealing most of our parking spaces. Then he goes ahead and saves the stolen parking spaces for people who bribe him. We have all thought one or two vicious thoughts abut him when we drive down and see all the spaces full.

Today i found a space and triumphantly parked there. He came running from somewhere to protect his precious space.He promised he would clear up some space elsewhere for me. I acquiesced to see what he would do next. He started moving the bikes an inch here and an inch there, all the while looking at me and grumbling about his back. I realized this was not a task he could do so i moved the bikes myself and squeezed in my bike. I assumed he would ask me for money but he just smiled and went away. He had made me late by 15 more mins so any charitable thought towards him vanished.This incident slipped from my mind by evening.When i slowly limped to my bike on my injured leg the old man appeared again from nowhere.I thought he was going to ask me for money now so i started limping faster. He walked faster.Finally he got to me and said

"madam.you were alright in the morning what happened to your leg.anyway, take real good care of it.put Iodex and massage and keep it warm water for sometime and then take lots of rest.It will become alright" so saying he smiled and walked away.

I think i was just too stunned to react. I stared after him in perplexed amusement.Maybe i should have felt guilty for harbouring bad thoughts of him.

But i was too happy! Happy that i had found one of those elusive reasons as to why i am still idealistic and amused because he very well could deny me a parking space tomorrow even if I was covered from head to toe in bandages!

-a tribute to our old man, the protector of all innocent parking lots.

Love

A conversation with a friend triggered a thought process. It was the most tried and tested topic of all times.Yeah, what else but love.Love a security blanket for some people,the light at the end of the tunnel for others...... A stranger you want to talk to but you can't cause you don't know the language , to most. For me , till now love has been a Concept. I have believed that it is something made of everything that is pure. I have thought that it is something that would be available in abundance if the world had been perfect.But since our world is so flawed, i have thought that the concept has become so complicated that we can only dream about it but never understand it let alone achieve it.
But I revisited that thought today. Is it so complicated that we cannot understand it , or is it so simple that we have ignored it? Is it not love that a mother feels when her baby first smiles at her. If so then what is so complicated about it? Is it not love when you share your sandwich with a friend even when you are hungry? When your friend is crying and all you can do is hug her and hope to ease the pain? When you move a puppy away from the dangers of a busy road?When you save a movie ticket stub for years , just because you watched it with someone special?When you die for your country just because you were born there....when you smile at a stranger on the street ....when you say thank you ...when you clasp the hand of someone who has no hope left anymore..... When you pray for ones you never knew and will never know , just so their suffering is eased..... When you sit in front of your t.v and cheer for your team even when they can't hear you...
What is it but love? Why is it looked upon as the gold at the end of the rainbow? Why is it hyped up so much that the very essence and purity that love is made of gets marred by jealousy and anger. Why do we keep searching for something we already have? I have come to realize something.Everything is a circle. We keep looking forward to something we so desperately want ,that we never realize that we actually left it behind.

C'est la Vie

Another chapter has ended. No I am not talking about a book.Though come to think of it I wish I was. While reading a book you always wait eagerly for the next chapter regardless of whether the current one is tragic or happy. The words "what next" play in the mind constantly like a background track.

Life unfortunately is a different story. Atleast for me. I love living for the moment and the what nexts never bother me. If anything does bother me it is the "what was". Oh how I hate those! There is nothing you can do about the "what was"s. They leave you feeling helpless.

Imagine this.You get so comfortable on a particular road in life. You go to and fro a million times and you know all the curves and bumps;all the funny signboards and all the secrets. Then one day Fate rubs sleep out of her eyes and looks at you. You are smiling. She thinks "that can't be right." So then she comes up to you and says " hey there, girl. You are done here. This is a one way road for you now. You can walk by once more but at the end you gotta decide which way and move on." She knows what you are going to say. Why not, she has heard it all. Before you can utter a squeak she's gone.

So you walk slowly down the road, one last time. Trying to keep alive the dying embers of experience. You revisit every memory try to feel what you felt before. You remember every tiny bit of emotion that had been evoked and a sad smile touches your lips but you don't notice.
You reach the end. The other roads beckon you. You don't spare them a glance. You are too busy staring back , wistfully, at what you have to leave behind. The pain in your heart is like a song. A song mourning the loss of a loved one. It's too hard to bear.

You try to shut the doors of your heart. You are surprised to find them open in the first place. You had thought that you had been vigilant, but sometime when you had gotten comfortable enough to forget, the risk had been taken and the doors had opened. Now all that was left was regret.

You realize that the time for decision making had come. You look unseeing at one road then the next. You don't really care. You look back at the one you have to leave. Your every thought goes towards distancing yourself from it. Your mind is strengthened by resolution but your stupid heart is weakened by pain. You stand motionless. You cannot afford to break. As the mind becomes stronger the doors shut with a painful creak
Without a single nod or word of farewell you turn and walk down the new road.

Conflict

A friend of mine asked me to write about confusion and conflict....At first glance she seems to be going through a phase of conflict due to confusion....Is that truly the case? I think not.Conflict did not arise from confusion in this case.but what happened was that there was conflict in the mind, a war between desires and necessities ; a war between what's right and what's easy ; a war between inner voices....a war....a war between choices.

Now what happens when you realize the conflict is too much for you? What happens when you add 2 + 2 and get 4 when you wanted 6. To put it in a nutshell , What happens when the mind refuses to face reality? It takes the easy way out.It cloaks the core issue with this deceptively innocent thing called confusion.Cause as long as you are confused you have a decent excuse to not do anything. To remain stagnant and hope some external force pushes things one way or the other. As long as you are confused , your conscience rests easy.

Harsh but rings true.Now on one hand this is pardonable. All of us want easy, care free lives, free of responsibility.We like to take the path of least resistance.Why ? Simply because it is the most easy and natural thing to do.We try our best to live in a state of inertia. We tread carefully , making sure that we don't upset the delicate balance of our lives. And if this inertia is upset by something outside our control , well there is that convenient scapegoat...yes destiny. So we adjust until we are comfortable again and begin moving along this new trajectory with an easy mind. It was meant to happen wasn't it?

Now why is this pardonable? Cause control is an illusion. you will never be able to plot your life to the last bit and expect it to work accordingly.So since it is an illusion, why bother right? Wrong...can you rest easy knowing that you didn't try? That you had no hand in trying to shape your life the way you want it? That you sat back in the courtroom waiting for the verdict from the faceless jury, and you didn't even hire your lawyer?Are you comfortable with not having a say?

Now as is the way of the human world, both paths have their own merits and demerits. What you have to decide is who makes a better bed partner? comfort or satisfaction.

What came first?

Yes , what came first?The chicken or the egg.This is a debate that i have never given much thought to.I have always looked at it as an amusing quandary that would never get solved, so why bother.After all who cared. And then in one of my deeper moments i realized it was an extremely important debate.You could draw parallels from it to any situation in life, in fact to life itself. If anyone solved this problem then it would be like untangling the most crucial knot of life.

I personally do not want to know the secrets of life.But i could relate this dilema to my life.Most of my life till now has been spent in passing off everything bad that i have done as a reaction to something else. "This happened to me that is why i did this". This has been the all powerful sentence that soothes the most troublesome of consciences. I have always been able to look at it from a point of view in which i was wronged first. But now that i think of it i wonder. What if the action i was reacting to was actually a reaction to some action of mine? How would i ever know? What right did i have to an easy conscience? How can i ever blame anything on anyone , when deeper thought places the blame back in my court?You might tell me this is as pointless as the chicken and the egg problem. Well pointless or not, it has been extremely liberating.

How?Well ask yourself this.How many times have you held a grudge against a person? more importantly, how many times can u remember the reason later on? Usually we carry a grudge without stopping to think why. The reason being we human beings feed on emotion. Emotion the only thing that tells us we are alive, we are more special than the rock there. Emotion , both negative and positive, makes us feel we have a right to our space on earth.

But today after i thought about cause and effect, i asked myself what need had i for this particular emotion.Did i really need an emotion that overshadowed thought and reason and basic compassion for the fellow human being, to make me feel important? I realized the answer was not important. I would never be able to hold a grudge against someone without giving it second thought. And once second thought sets in you can't really hold a 'mindless' grudge now, can you? Hence I am free, not by much maybe but more than before. And as i learn i realize, the most complex solutions lie in the most ridiculous of situations. I mean com'on "the chicken or the egg ?" not very profound is it?. but "what came first?" yup that unlocks quite a few doors for me.Yes its as simple as that, "What came first?".

SELF PITY

I have stood on that particular verge before, a million times, put up a token protest and then jumped down.Jumped into darkness and have been embraced by it.Felt immeasurably comforted.Have spiraled deep into the darkness that deluded me into believing my problem was unique and hence so was my life.I have plunged happily away from Light.
Light,my enemy.Light that laughed at me and condescendingly showed me that I was a speck.But the soothingly whispered words of darkness had soon drowned the mocking laughter.I have lingered long enough to feel the high of low.
And as always I have been yanked back into light.I haven't fought it.I welcomed Reason and laughed along with Light at the momentary gratification delusion had given me.Yes,I have stood there before.
Today I stood at that verge again.I put up a token protest.I arched over to begin the graceful dive.But today was different.Today I stopped.Today I thought "To hell with Mr.Darkness,let me go climb the hill instead."
If this was fiction i would have been laughed at (theres still a high chance of that).But as it is not,I'll remember today as the day I had to make a choice.A choice between easily got comfort and painfully earned satisfaction.

I was made for the hills,
I was made for the sea,
I was made for solitude,
But silence killed me.

TIME

she runs
over hills, over plains,
through snow, through rains,
she runs.........................
neither to escape, nor in pursuit,
neither to defend, nor to loot,
she runs.........................
neither a warrior, nor a thief,
deaf to wails, blind to grief
she runs.........................
neither to wealth,nor to health,
neither in haste, nor in stealth
she runs.........................
of horrible beauty is her mighty race
great men cower being unable to face,
yet, she runs.........................
trip her, trap her,
catch her, bind her,
try as you might,she runs.........................
oh heartless beauty! why do you run?!
won't you wait till my task is done?
men might cry, but heedlessly she runs.........................
the wise silently watch her way,
the fools try to make her stay.
obliviously she runs.......................
hence folks don't be like everyother person i meet,
care not for the running feet,
cause you might worry and stress over your watch , but remember she runs.........................

my first crush

i thought this poem that i had written about my first crush(long back) would be an ideal start

my first crush
when i turn around and see you there,
i feel something very rare,
i want to tell you that i care,
but all i do is stand and stare...............

my friends think i am a fool,
when i tell them you are cool,
they tell me there are better ones,
but i prefer you to other funs..........

everyday i wait for you,
hoping for a glimpse or two,
i never felt like this before,
i am just not the same girl anymore..........

and then one day i saw you with her,
talking as if the world was a blur,
hot jealousy pierced through me,
when i realized n my first crush was not to be..........

my heart drooped,
my shoulders stooped,
after my first crush failed,
all other joys seemed to have paled..........

on my vehicle,one day,i went to the market,
stood there wondering where to park it,
"may i help you?" drawled a voice rich and lush,
turning around i found my second crush.