Togetherness in separation

Can you ever really be detached from someone you have loved? Can you ever really not be interested in one another's life? We all train ourselves to move on, sometimes out of choice, sometimes because there is no other option.

Why do couples fall apart? Why do they no longer remain a "we"? We separate because we feel (and are extremely confident at that when we make that decision) that we have good reasons not to be with the other. Valid, reasonable reasons that drive us to a decision as sombre as a break-up. We quote irreconcilable circumstances, occurrence of things that one or both parties cannot compromise on and so many more points that makes being an adult, so heavy on the shoulders. All that said and done, well understood and digested, what really happens when two individuals separate? Where does that love, so-intense-that-it-almost-hurt go?

In my opinion, the love doesn't ever go away. There are moments when you think about the other and feel pure unadulterated hatred/anger, but more often than not, its only love that you still feel for the other. It cannot be anything other than love, even when you feel the hatred/anger. The reason being this. It is simply not possible to hate someone you loved so much. Doesn't work that way. And if all you feel is hatred/anger/viciousness, maybe what you had when you were together was not love at all.

Love, in all its jaded glory, still remains the most powerful emotion that one can ever feel. If you have ever felt love for someone in the true sense of the word, for even one moment, there is no way, ego, anger, even separation can wash it away. It is a futile attempt to refute it and I know better than to pursue that. If the love was honest, you become these invisible conjoined twins, maybe never together but never ever apart.

Five ticks

There are certain moments in every one's life where time seems to stop. Moments for which you have created a play in your head, carefully added each and every detail, arranged it with a background score (oh, the drama!), played and replayed in your mind over and over, so much so that you dream about those moments. Sometimes you are the graceful one, sometimes you crumble down to dust. Sometimes you are surprised at a particular outcome of that piece of fiction, sometimes you realize that you know better than to expect anything different. Like every run of a play, the moment is executed differently each and every time.

In reality, when that moment actually arrives, it happens for less than an instant. You look up, your stomach is up in knots, you stare and its over. And before you know it, all the previous replays, all the previous runs are now replaced by this one piece of reality. Sure, when the reality is now replayed, it is in slow motion, where you try to re-capture every little detail that actually ended up being the truth of the matter. It hurts to realize that you knew better than to expect something different.

Snobs that we humans are, we fool ourselves into feeling that, we are different, that our relationships with people are better, stronger and more meaningful than those with others. The fact of the matter is that all it takes is those five seconds of reality to slap you in the face and bring you back to facing the bitter truth. And for better or for worse, those five seconds teach you to deal with it, take it in your stride and keep walking. A dear dear friend once told me this - "We humans are wired to fix ourselves and live without anyone". Someone you thought was closest to your heart, someone you trusted the most, someone you almost messed your life for - turns out, you can live without them. And any foolish expectation that you have, from the remains, is driven to closure by five ticks of a clock.

Got respect?

Ever wonder why some days, events, phases of life have meaning only when the people involved uphold respect solemnized (albeit subtly) to one another? In absence of this, these days, events, even phases of life just crumble to become bitter memories that come back to haunt one. Respect is such a hard 7 letter word. Hard to get it, hard to keep it. Also, such an involuntary emotion one feels for another. Extremely tough to manipulate, is that mutual sense of respect two individuals have for one another.

Love, hate, anger, happiness manifest themselves much more easily and are so fleeting. Feeling that sense of respect for another person and gaining that from another, needs time, mutual-interest and is something which cannot be handed out lightly. Precisely why, it hurts so much more, if one shows utter disrespect - to your emotions, to your actions, to you. It makes all those days, events and life-instances suddenly seem meaningless, almost mocking one for having gone through those.

Here's the million dollar question - Is there any meaning to a relationship, ANY relationship, if there is no mutual sense of respect? To me, presence or absence of it is a make or break deal. We humans are pack animals. I would assume that anyone with a little bit of sanity, would want to be in the company of individuals who make us happy. Being respected for what we are, me thinks, makes us feel happy. Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn't it?

How then, do people, with intelligent minds and reasonable intellects end up in the company of folks who have absolutely no respect for them? Why do we, against all better judgment, let that happen to us? Love/affection,  I think cause each and every one of us to face this humiliation at some point or another in our lives.  It's the fine print that comes with every relationship which none of us reads. Sometimes it works out, most times it doesn't. And what we are left with are, days, events and phases of life which are now just moments of shame, pain and remorse. Meaningless days, lost events and empty phases.

The player, the bully

I am becoming too predictable for my own good. It has become imperative that I write every time I fly. It's mostly because my mind runs at a 100 miles an hour when I am alone. It's really hard to keep it thinking one thought. There's just so much to assimilate, so much of the present to record, so much of the past to rewind and play, so much to erase to ring in the new.

Why do we mortals become philosophers when we are flying, at the beach or on vacation? Anything and everything seems possible and our agenda includes conquering nothing lesser than the world itself. And the same locations bring sadness perpetuated through nostalgia, the lost and the freed. It's almost like we fill our lives with so much just so that we aren't surrounded by silence and complain when there is no peace and quiet. We set ourselves up for something that is either painful or irksome at the very least.

Among all the relationships I share with the people around me, extremely precious are the ones that make me think. Such people are so enriching, they bring so much to my life and what I can give back is but minimal. These folks, just by being themselves, input so much content into the eclectic stuff I put out in these blogs.

One such thought process began late last night and has been messing with my head since then. Why is it that some of us get beaten up constantly? It's almost like high school never ended and life ended up being the bully. Yes, we all taught ourselves to survive and tackle the bully, for lack of any other option to react otherwise. But it's almost like some of us get no redemption. Well, let me not sound that extreme. Some of us get no redemption in certain aspects of our life.

In my opinion, each one of us has a partial win in life. Some know what they want and fight the bully, knowing all too well that it is a negotiated out-of-court settlement. Others don't even realize what's missing till it's too late. At that point, they make their peace with life and learn to live with and get stuck with an out-of-court settlement on the bully's terms. Frustrated are both these sets of people, but at least the former probably end up with sort of an upper hand.

The point I am trying to make? By now, you must have realized that I ask more questions than answer any with reasonable conviction. What do I know about solving life's convoluted puzzle? I am but a mere player who happens to think that at the very least, I must keep asking questions, keep jumping contexts (this entry just goes to prove that!), keep the bully challenged and on his toes enough to warrant a break from messing with me.

Half empty?

I am silenced. If you know me, but at all, very few things have this effect on me. I don't know how to react to what I just saw. It is uplifting, saddening, humbling and deeply thought provoking all at the same time.

It's about a couple of kids. Remember childhood? How it was, to be kids? Endless fights with siblings about things which became unimportant somewhere between the hair pulling and the scratching, waiting for that recess period which never seemed to arrive, starting the day with a clean uniform, hair in place, all oiled and in pig tails, ending the day with dusty shoes, tiny stones inside them after all the boisterous sports, not one hair strand in place as the other kids got hold of you in kabaddi as you made it your life goal to touch that line, that victory giving you a happiness that no monetary/professional gain has given you, hating to go back home because home meant homework amongst other irksome things?

These kids, they hate going home too. Not because home means the end of fun and games, not because home means dad hogging TV to watch the 8:30PM news, not because home means mom's incessant calls that its dinner time. The kids hate going home because home means the red light district of Calcutta.  These are kids, born into brothels, and for no obvious fault/choice of theirs, either steadily reaching the age to join the family "line" or becoming pimps. The boys have no respect for women as they grow up to be young men, the girls swear without batting an eye lid, death is no shock and life is merely another day spent in a visibly toxic environment.

In the midst of what was a sick feeling in my tummy for 60 minutes, I noticed that these kids are actually terribly optimistic. They love their mothers, they know they work very hard to make a living, they respect their mothers, they try to love the fathers (ones that cared/needed to stick around) and dream big about their future.  They don't start their day complaining about the overflowing sewage, nor are they mad at their mothers for hitting them, much less complain about traffic from inside a high-end German car on an all American freeway or cringe because the guy in front cut the line at the airport as you ignore the 2 screaming kids and all that luggage in his hand.

Identify with this, my dear reader? If so, I needn't say more. My work here, is truly done.

Not a genius, barely a thinker

Is it possible to feel a sense of loss over something that is not yours to begin with? Humans are such strange beings! Blogs such as this, get any audience because people, being the way they are, never cease to stump themselves. We are a work of art, someone or something's finest pride and glory, yet, so often we manage to display little variation from chimps hanging off trees.


Some genius thinker once said, "If its absence doesn't hurt, its probably not worth the time you are giving it". That person is not a genius by any means and barely a thinker. Just someone random, walking the face of earth trying to make some sense out of a predominantly self induced chaotic existence.


Social beings that we inadvertently are, we are all wired to fit together in a certain way. Some relationships give us a sense of security, some give us pure unadulterated joy, some give us a terrible adrenaline rush, some let us fly free, and others make us feel comfy cozy. Of the above five manifestations of emotions, most of us tend towards folks that provide at least one of these to us. People who make us feel two or more of these emotions are in our list of folks who pretty much make our lives what they are, thus making them life support systems. If we are lucky enough to find that someone who can provide all of these emotions, it is a fairy tale beginning to something stupendous.


Needless to say, fairy tales find a better place in the fiction section of Barnes and Noble than in real life. In this instance, it is primarily due to the fact that it is almost impossible (dare I?) for more than three of the above manifestations to co-exist. Check out the portfolio of your relationships. You have your careless friends (ones that make you feel like superman), the adorable caring/giving ones (ones you tend to take for granted) and ones that challenge and tingle your thinking (ones that keep our lives on toes).


While each one of us stumble upon some combination of traits in every relationship we encounter in the course of our lives, which are the ones which leave the biggest impressions in our life? Which are the ones we cannot do without? Which are the ones that make us feel like the statement the not-a-genius-barely-a-thinker made?

Life of an eternal romantic

I spent a lot of time by myself this past week. Got me doing a lot of reading, a lot of thinking. Something I so rarely get a chance to do. I was listening to a lot of music, but music bugs me at times. Reminds me of days past and the phase of life that that piece influenced. Something incredibly romantic about the pangs of sadness nostalgia brings. One of the few things that tops it, is the phenomenon of falling in love. Getting to know a new person, a new presence, and getting washed all over. In the age where hand-written love letters have been replaced with electronic media and electronic media alone, this usually translates to waiting for that email notification to pop-up, that phone to buzz with the incoming text or call - definitely less romantic but having the potential to set the heart racing just as much.

That got me thinking - man (err pardon me, woman too), is so in love with the idea of being in love, that there is that eternal need to feel like a teenager having a massive crush. Well, maybe not all men (yes, and women). But there is a certain percentage of the human race (present company included), who are such die-hard romantics that, this drama and the sense of being weak-in-the-knees is almost like a life supply. At the risk of coming across as a maniac, I will continue to present the train of my thought.

I realize that one of my biggest fears in life, is the idea of falling out of love. If asked to portray a mental image of myself, it would be so. A certain character in a certain movie who is totally in love with the idea of being in love, causing her to sprint across vast expanses of green, dressed in white, trusting that He would give her a sign when she found her love. Sounds pretty corny, doesn't it? But that's me. When I saw that on screen, me, along with my co-inhabiters of the "being-foolishly-in-love" world, established a picture of themselves in their heads.

Leads me to think - what happened to that dreamer when she found her soul mate (dang it, I am setting myself up to be considered a totally crazy person today, aren't I? My take on soul mates needs a whole other  blog)?  Did she settle down to have a family of 2 kids, a dog and a house in the burbs? Or did she yearn for that romance to be alive and kicking for years to come, despite the blah of everyday life?

I leave you, dearest reader, with this thought - When the magic of it all fizzles out, how do romantics survive? What keeps them going? My take? - A romantic is never ever really out of that state of being in love, never really out of that state of having a muse. That, and only that, keeps them smiling, keeps them floating, keeps them sprinting across imaginary greens.

Care for a do-over?

Ever wonder how your life would be, had you got one do-over? I was doing my usual routine when I fly. I nap for about 30 seconds, reach out for the airline magazine, make a mental note of our next destination somewhere between the amazing hotels advertised and the things to do in a certain vacation spot, open my iPad to read, read for about 45 seconds before switching over to Solitaire. I was on a particularly bad streak of losing when i realized that the game allows you one do-over. That practically changed the course of my game. And that got me thinking - if the face of a game can change with one do-over, how would one do over alter the course of one's life?

More interestingly, I started to think of things that I would change, events/decisions/moments I would want to erase from my life and start over again with that one do-over. There are things that come to mind right away - that extremely embarrassing moment when I waved back to a person only to realize that the person was waving at someone behind me, the numerous heartbreaks, the bad hair style choices that ended up in pictures, the mere thought of which make me cringe, the genius moment when I decided to color my hair red, moments of utter dismal weakness, the multiple overseas flights alone, only to name a few. That's when I realize, this list will never end - for ANYone.

I WISH I could find one person who would attest that their life, it's course, their decisions, where they've been and where they are going, everything in their life choices was perfect. I KNOW that despite the unending list, my life feels perfect. It fits. It makes sense. Every single life experience has made me the person I am, and in its own crazy, twisted and imperfect way, my life is that of a very happy person.

I realize that I am weird and whacked out and to me, that's the only way to be. How can one take life too seriously? When the tick-tocks chime away unnoticed, how much sense does running behind making a grand big picture make? In its own convoluted form, my life, in all it's drama, in all its beautiful and bitter moments, in all its glory and darkness, has taught me a very simple thing. Almost too simple. The smiles that were, will always make you smile, and the tears that were, are gone. Life, in that vein, cannot get much more perfect now, can it? How would one do-over fix something that is already perfect?

Ever wonder how your life would be, had you got one do-over? Turns out you don't need that one do-over or for that matter any number of do-overs to look back and admire the magnificence of your current life story.

Power wars

Power. Even saying the word creates a stir. Makes one feel invincible, undefeated. Makes one do things according to whim and fancy. These very things make it terribly important to arbitrate the handing out of power. The power of decision making, of altering the course of actions, of breaking something that was visibly alright. I cannot even begin mentioning the people that get sucked into these power wars, who have absolutely no control or say, have no option but to watch as well functioning entities which they have put a lot of effort and hard work into, drop to, as one of my good friends puts it, "things that go poof".

The point I guess I am trying to make is, this power battle almost seems like a game called "dog and the bone" we used to play when we were kids. Two folks at each turn, try to grab a piece of cloth and bolt out. The one who is the faster one, and can manage to grab that thing without the other one touching his/her arm takes the honors. The key though is, the win IS a short lived one. You have to give another person his/her turn to try for the "big" guns. Whether you like it or not, you surrender your victory for others to go for it. Since that piece of cloth has little to no value to one, surrendering it almost always barely hurts. But as we grow older, as things at stake become more and more precious, so does the desperation to keep fighting and never give them up.

This inevitably leads me to think - When does this power struggle end in the course of one's life? The more important thing is, when power gets granted to the "wrong" person (well, who am I to judge?), do you suck it up and live with it, or do you break free? And is this decision, by any means, an easy one? There is that inertia to change, there is comfort in the current state, there is familiarity in the current state. Does exploring the unknown become more and more difficult as one grows older? Or is it just a personality thing?

Either way, I believe that in profession as in relationships, there are clear signs planted all through one's life. Signs that will guide one to make the right decision. The difficult part is knowing and accepting that the decision is a good one and will be a positive reinforcement to one's life, which will become apparent later, if not then. I truly believe that this trust, in and itself is such an empowerment. Faith that life has something amazing in store for you. That each and every day is here to unfold itself to you and take your breath away. That confidence in itself is such a high. On that note, I wish that this self-empowerment washes over your life, my dear reader. I wish I can infect you with the happiness and rush that this confidence brings to me. I wish that today and everyday of your life makes you feel like you and only you can hold life by its reigns and keep it galloping like you cant care less about the end to this wonderful ride.

True happiness - Fact/Myth?

Being genuine. What am I, if I am not genuine? On this blog, in my mind, with my people. I am an imperfect person. I have my weaknesses and my fears. I have my moments of absolute happiness and elation. The reasons behind either of these extreme emotions are so simple. Imperfection around me. Around each and every one of us. We need to learn to co-exist with the chaos, to silence the demons in our head, to live with the melodrama that each passing day poses to us.

Before I am branded of eternal cynicism, I do have some positivity at the end of this sentence.

In the midst of this mess that we have managed to make out of a seemingly simple life, there is that smile, there is that hug, there is that presence that makes it all worth it. It's really astounding that the vast majority of us barely even notice this presence, let alone thanking it, or reciprocating. We take it for granted and we complain that we have nothing to make out this complexity that we, in reality, have perpetuated. I am no different.

But there is this one thing by which I can guarantee happiness. In the true sense of the word. Terribly pompous claim for a 29 year old who has little to no life-experience, eh? Humor me and read on.

Stop focusing on what is lacking in your loved ones. Realize that you lack in a lot of ways too. You are less than perfect too. What matters, what really matters is this: Are they there for you when you need them? Do they love you for what you are and more for what you are not? Recognize these support systems, be there for them, treasure them. Genuinely try.

I will guarantee another thing too. It will be HARD. Loving things that are ours, that are jaded with time, is a hard thing. The mind is trained to see bad in what we have. To see fault is anything that is even close to perfect. It is within us, to calm the crazy within and choose to be happy.

At the risk of sounding terribly preachy, I will leave you with one thing: Today, before you go to bed, close your eyes for 2 minutes and sense where you are - literally and figuratively. I am SURE you will smile at what you know at the end of those 120 seconds.