Its That Time of The Year Again....

Let the spirit of love gently fill our hearts and homes. In this loveliest of seasons may you find many reasons for happiness. May the peace and joy of the holiday season be with you throughout the coming year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A wake up call....

What unfolded in Mumbai has made me angry, sad, harsh, and frightened.

Here are men who are afraid of nothing….walking in as if to savour an ice-cream killing everything in sight.

Their determination is scary…in that despite their numbers dwindling they held on and kept up the siege for so long.

There are many people, institutions to blame.

But it’s to the spirit of Mumbai that they have survived yet once again. If it had been Bangalore that would have been the death knell for this city, so unashamedly unprepared to meet any emergency.

There are many questions I’m repeatedly asking myself and now there are fears…

Of how any of us could be caught in the cross fire, when least expected.

Makes me worry about tomorrow…. My big plans. At the moment my only plans.

What if I don’t have much time left?

But more so I worry about my loved ones. When I see the pain on those who have lost, it makes me sit upright and wonder how I would deal with it. Will there be this calm or will I merely be numb. I don’t want to imagine…that makes it a little real.

Every place is unsafe.

Every place is a target.

Every one is a target.

Life is no more innocent, about random laughs, tears, simple joys and little treats.

It has to be about accomplishing all I want soon.

For the clock is ticking and no one knows for how long.

God be with those who have lost love and more in this madness. May it never be repeated.....

Do I listen to my heart?

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs

“.. Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” Steve Jobs

This did jolt me out of my reverie. I almost quite know what it is that I want to become. Or rather I refuse to admit that it is that which my heart keeps whispering to me, coz it’s not easy, it might warrant failure, repeated too. But then what is this life if I were to but stay within tested waters? Shouldn’t I dare?

Well I should. But right now I need to convince myself I’m hearing it right and that I have it in me to go that far despite all the setbacks, rebuke, and possible failure. Also that it will not pay the bills now and maybe never. But can I afford to make that leap of faith? Time alone will tell. Until then let me prep myself both to soar and fall.

Of Sirs & Madams

As part of our professional lives one runs into multitudes of people, each with their own idiosyncrasies. But it’s many a person from the burgeoning PR industry that has got my goat over and over again.

For one, many of them nurse terrible egos and attitude issues. Its almost as if people on the other end of the spectrum, if not in a position to contribute to their appraisals or salaries, are by nature not deserving of simple courtesy and politeness.

From mere bimbos, to nervous dimwits, to egotistical idiots, there are very many to pick and choose from. Very few if at all have the real understanding of the domain their client is in the exact nature of the job they are expected to perform.

Unless we get more of the latter, they will manage to elicit nothing but downright rudeness from me!

God save me from more idiots’ at least for today!!!!!!!!!!

Love me how?

"Just because someone doesn't love you as you wish, it doesn't mean you are not loved with all his/her being." Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This has me knotted up. I have been trying to figure out what it means to be loved by someone. And when that does not match the depth and form of what you perceive should be the manner in which you are loved, does that take away from what someone feels for you? Does it belittle that emotion in any fashion not to conform to your norms?

In a manner yes, for then you are forever displeased with it and therefore the end result is undue sorrow and hurt for both parties involved. But that is also unfair in a sense someone argues. For there is no single way to being loved. Everyone loves in their own manner and fashion. And to judge any one to be wrong or right is silly for what you fathom might seem equally inane to the opposite party.

For some the silent method works wonderfully well. For some one odd whisper. For some others it has to be dotted with romantic interludes and extravagances. To some others its mere display of affection and completely public love. There is also the OTT kind. Then there is the intellectual kind. The sad kinds, the moody kinds, the musical kinds, and so on....

To me it has to be a mix of one and all depending on my mood. And when gauged right I am the most pleasant and pleased partner. When not, I am forever searching for what is lacking in my love. Does that make me a selfish loser for undermining the other body's complete and mad affection, albeit exhibited differently?

Hmmm...

Kangal irandal….

After a long silence I wake up only to recede into the depths of this masterpiece. One awesome song from the movie Subramaniyapuram. Have been addicted to it for almost a month now. And can’t seem to get enough of it though I listen to it looped! The song was composed by James Vasanthan and he blows your mind away with this. Now back to my song.

So whom do I call?

Considering we are at logger heads, almost everytime we are in the same room, it’s funny how I’m beginning to miss talking to her so.

An insane schedule that we hit upon when I first moved out of home, to ensure I was safe amidst all those vultures out there. Now an unbreakable habit.

Even though nothing changes every three hours, we still have to make that perfunctory call, from the moment we wake up till we call it a day, simply updating one another of what’s happening in our little worlds. Each call may last not more than a minute, but both parties happy at the end of it.

For my hubby and bro these inane and at most times “simbly” calls are matters of great amusement and though we’ve been ribbed time and again, nothing stops me from calling my mom a zillion times a week.

And suddenly yesterday it dawned on me, how much a part of my daily routine it has become. And how now that she is on a vacation, and I have no means of calling so often, I am missing it so.

Crazy how little givens become so bloody valued.

Anyhow hope she has a blast.

How much is enough?

A friend sent me this forward today….

Made me wonder about “enough”.

I am forever complaining that I don’t have enough…or that everything I have is not enough….

How much is enough?

Anyhow read on….


----Recently I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the Hyderabad airport. They had announced the departure.

Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said, 'I love you and I wish you enough'.

The daughter replied, 'Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom'.

They kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated.

Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, 'Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?'.

Yes, I have,' I replied. 'Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?'.

'I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is - the next trip back will be for my funeral,' she said.

'When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough'. May I ask what that means?'.

She began to smile. 'That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone'.

She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more.

'When we said, 'I wish you enough', we wanted the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them'. Then turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

She then began to cry and walked away.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them but then an entire life to forget them.

TAKE TIME TO LIVE.....

To all my friends and loved ones,

I WISH YOU ENOUGH........!

So sang John Waite….in 1984

Every time I think of you
I always catch my breath
And I'm still standing here
And you're miles away
And I'm wonderin' why you left
And there's a storm that's raging
Through my frozen heart tonight

I hear your name in certain circles
And it always makes me smile
I spend my time thinkin' about you
And it's almost driving me wild
And there's a heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight

I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say

There's a message in the wire
And I'm sending you this signal tonight
You don't know how desperate I've become
And it looks like I'm losing this fight
In your world I have no meaning
Though I'm trying hard to understand
And it's my heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight

I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say

And there's a message that I'm sending out
Like a telegraph to your soul
And if I can't bridge this distance
Stop this heartbreak overload

I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say
I ain't missing you
I ain't missing you
I can lie to myself
And there's a storm that's raging
Through my frozen heart tonight
I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say
I'm missing you
I ain't missing you
I ain't missing you at all
I can lie to myself
Ain't missing you
I ain't missing you
Ain't missing you, oh no
No matter what my friends might say
I ain't missing you...

Of Poetry Competitions & School...

For some weird reason I am reminded of the numerous times I strode onto a stage to recite my poem. The high of winning the prize for the right pronunciation, modulation and emotion was quite irreplaceable in those innocent years.

Flashes of many a poem I recited in my school years have been whizzing past since last night....

Maybe they want to be said out aloud yet again....

Excerpts from The Lady of Shalott: Alfred Tennyson
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

Mystery solved!

After years of wondering why I was the only one who was plagued by those darn creatures it seems there is an answer….a scientific explanation to my irrational fears!

Read this:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/144541

In Sickness & In Health!

“Falling ill is not something that happens to us, it is a choice we make as a result of things happening to us” Jonathan Miller

Each time I have succumbed to illness, I have laughed at the stupidity of letting the body run amok till it could take no more and had to forcibly shut down. Each time I promised myself it wouldn’t happen a second time. Close to a dozen such experiences and I wonder why I religiously repeat this mistake with not a care in the world. And endure pain, medication, and a sense of dejection.

That is not to say I do not enjoy those phases in parts. I am eerily attracted to the smell that hospitals and disinfectants emit. I undergo withdrawal symptoms when I haven’t undergone some sort of clinical appointment once every six months and the icing on the cake would be being given a shot. Since childhood I have been fascinated by hospitals and the concept of being a patient. To the extent that some folks believe I create symptoms merely to get a doctor to take a look at me.

Unfortunately each and every tryst with medicine and hospitals has been downright painful in my experience. And most of them I didn’t even have the consciousness to observe and enjoy! And by the time consciousness prevailed I was ready to go home.

And yet I have had inane diseases. Like getting a whip lash injury (how I would not elaborate, and me and the doc conspired about getting me a polka dotted neck support), injuring and fracturing myself just above the eye and beneath my eyebrow by banging myself against a steel tap in the hostel by mistake, getting shots in my hip when the food poisoning incidents got too frequent and painful, breaking one hand and not wearing a cast, tearing a ligament on the other, and then balancing it out with a contusion injury on my knee, and having some surgeries in between, some problem with my pharynx, alternating between mono and stereo modes when my ears give up on me periodically, etc etc. Some more I shall omit for fear of causing a ear shattering gasp.

No it’s not an attempt to sound like a medical catalogue or a nagging and painfully boring patient. All are true and catalogued for good in the form of bills, medical certificates to schools/colleges/offices. Instead the way I look at it, I offer many a doctor the chance to practice and hone his theoretical knowledge. After all no other single human being can throw up so many interesting challenges all from one single body. Maybe I should donate this body to the medical fraternity to hone the skills of those coming after us. That’s food for thought indeed.

The other side to all this. I crave attention when I am unwell. Even if the world were to ignore me in my good healthy and hearty days, if someone doesn’t call repeatedly to check on my well being and happiness levels during my sick days I can make life hell. I am one fussy soul who only believes in the worst and so each time I have wondered what it would be like not to have another birthday to celebrate. And each time someone concerned has called back to check on me has taken me a step closer to recovery. And everyone who misses out on those calls/visits gets shunted to the last chamber in my memory.

Yes I am eccentric all right. But hey if I were all that sane would I have made life any better?

Now this I need to learn and learn fast at that…. “Health is not valued till sickness comes.” Thomas Fuller

Blissfully unaware...

Does that bespectacled man know what awaits me around the corner?

Can he predict the ups and downs that await my every living moment?

How to circumvent them, so I may retain my pretty smile forever?

Or does he believe I am fated to doom, to tragedy and sadness for the remaining years of my life?

Can they really see all that and more?

I wonder, after all I was to have died before celebrating my 7th birthday and here I am having spent one score years more, wondering why he died instead of me.

So what makes these mortals see beyond the human realm?

Why is it that providence is willing to let them into secrets they have guarded so zealously all these years?

What do they hope to achieve by warning those mere mortals or scaring them to a speedier death?

Is it because these men and women, either by rolling shells or looking at our palms or by watching a parrot jump across the space can somehow fathom what that man upstairs had in mind for humankind?

What gives them the edge to know those other worldly secrets?

And if it is as divine and blessed as they claim it is then why are they dying to encash it so?

Curiosity will soon get the better of me and I might be more than tempted to attempt a sitting with one of these “learned men”.

But what can they tell me I don’t know already?

Or is it that he merely wants to warn me away from the many more lurking dangers?

What if he fails miserably yet again?

Then who is responsible for that shoddy knowledge or incomplete reading?

God, him or me?

I am curious. Yet something in me resists. What if he is right and I know my day of departure?

Would life be worth living then?

Guess not.

Ignorance is indeed bliss.

Of memories and more....

“Love is as much of an object as an obsession, everybody wants it everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it, those who do, will cherish it, be lost in it, and among all, will never...never forget it.” Curtis Judalet


Two years of holy matrimony.

As that landmark fast approaches, the natural rewind occurs.

The first glance, the first date, the first kiss, the first fight, the first apology, the first letter, the first everything.

Life ain’t a bed of roses, if it were; would it have been as well remembered?

Life is all about memories, some cherished, the rest despised.

Yet the heady mix makes for many a smile down the years.

Here’s to many more memory making years.

Love - a fortunate accident!

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

- Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Divine Accident Indeed!

“The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.”
Sir Hugh Walpole

All Alone!

“All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.” Jean de la Bruyere

What is it about being alone that is so scary? That seems so insurmountable? That chokes me and leaves me running out like a mad hatter, as if the world were coming to an end. What will make it better? Why has it suddenly become so impossible to be alone? Why do I dread my own company? Or is it something more?

I need answers. I don’t want to be locked up in an asylum cell fearing even the goddamn disinfectant smelling wall.

Make me see sense. Give me courage to tide over this. I need to be strong.

This or That?

The Rig Veda says, “When there is harmony between the mind, heart and your determination, nothing is impossible.”

Now my question: for someone as confused and vacillating as me, harmony seems as unattainable as utopia. So then how do we make the impossible, possible?

I am perpetually torn between two extremes. Why I wonder? Is it because those two divergent choices really exist in my little world? Or because I would like to delude myself that though the available option is not as pleasant as I would like it to be, there is this nook in my little brain I can run away to hide in.

The choices stump me at times. Yet I pretend I am conquering something, a temptation, a lesser option, a similar not up to the mark opportunity in favour of this so-called wise and well-informed decision. Only to rant in a few months at best a few hours.

If varied options merely lead to confusion and discontent in hindsight, why not do away with them?

But then how will I console myself that I got the better deal, unless there is something to pip in favour of it?

Life’s choices have me confused.

But that is my silly high.

I refuse to let it go.

And true it is...

“What is love? Love is when one person knows all of your secrets... your deepest, darkest, most dreadful secrets of which no one else in the world knows... and yet in the end, that one person does not think any less of you; even if the rest of the world does.”