Tag: life

  • MOTTO FOR THIRTY

    MOTTO FOR THIRTY

    We can breakdown the lifecycle of a person, based on how we expect certain age numbers to mark as a shift in the state of our being. Like, hitting the 18-year mark and expecting the world to take you more seriously, legally. Or that 60-year mark, when your life starts to steer away from the road you have taken all your life and veer into these newer, greener pastures. I think the 30-year mark is the most transformative of the three.

    The 18 year marks the explosive outpour of the youthful energy when you are ready to take the bull by its horns. Whereas the 60-year mark is the goodbye to an old friend, a life long-lived to achieve something you sought, moving on to the new chapter, one filled with fulfilment, contentment and what follows next. But 30-year mark is all about a crucial junction of both; that justifies the person you were at 18 and defines the person you will at 60.

    Being 30 is chalking it out, the tentative plan of your life based on what you have accumulated till now, be it money, career, family, friends, or if nothing else then experience. Your eternal spring of youth now knows its depth. Your excitement knows better than poking some of the beehives that you would have confidently pelted stones at, at 18. You are not there yet and know that the journey is not going to be as breezy or beautiful as you thought it would. You are ready to accept it for what it is, with all of its flaws, and plan to make the best out of it. Being 30 is about acceptance.

    No, I am not 30 yet. I still have a year to go. But trying to understand what lays ahead always takes me back to what all went by. Only by retracing it all I will be able to figure out the way forward. So, with the timer started, I have exactly a year left to figure it all out, or maybe to accept all that has been figured out till now.

    Hence, this year is about fine-tuning my acceptance of situations around me. To address them, acknowledge them, and let it all breathe. Among the long list of things that needs to be wrapped up and tied with a neat bow to achieve it, one thing that’s going to be tricky is the abrupt endings.

    I realised today while talking to my friend that the people who enter your life, the ones with whom you make memories, fall under three categories:

    • The people who continue to be in your life.
    • The people who phased off your life organically.
    • The people who are not in your life anymore.

    The best thing about people who stick with you for long enough is that they stick with you through thick and thin. The years you put under your belt do convert into some amazing relationships, no matter the distance or frequency. Yes, the underlying assumption is the fact that they should be good humans, but I have been lucky in that department. I have friends from all spheres of my life, who have stuck by with me. If we calculate the dissociative tendencies I exuberate at times, I cannot take any credit in this department other than the fact that I tried keeping honesty at the plinth of each of these relationships. No matter how hard the going has gotten, no matter what they wanted to hear, if I have been asked for my honest opinion, I have told them the truth without holding any punches. Maybe it is the trust that has generated from this fact, that it’s not as if I won’t lie to them, but I sure will not if I am asked not to. You not only live your memories with them but also keep creating new ones on the go.

    Then there are people who belong to an alternate timeline now. You have been very close to them in the past, but due to situations, transitions, life in general, you end up phasing away from each other’s universe. Your fondest memories of them, are the recollections that always bring a smile to your face. It always feels as if the entire thing happened a few days, months, maybe years ago, but the truth is that your memories are of your school age, and they are having kids now. You have lived very different lives from those times, are most probably different human beings altogether now, but it fails to deter that smile, that fondness or that warmth that accompany those memories. You know if you cross your paths with them again, all it will take is just a smile to rekindle that warmth from the embers long-forgotten underneath the slumber of the life that happened.

    At last, the ones who have gone, the abrupt endings. You are not talking to them anymore. You may or may not know why. They are people who couldn’t stick and couldn’t phase away. You fell apart at some point, due to reasons known or unknown, but they are defined by the fact that you do not know where you stand with them. If there has been a person that has been close to you ever and is not anymore, and they did not belong to the above-mentioned categories, just put them here. Mostly you will find those people here whom you wish could have moved to the “phased off organically” category. You are in a dilemma because you do not know where they stand in your list, or where do you stand in theirs. When a memory with them hits, you smile, which converts into a frown a few minutes later, wondering what happened. Even if you know what happened, you wonder, if that was supposed to be it? There are some people who are easier than others to shift from this category into the other two. And then there are people who are to be figured out.

    I think my form of acceptance will be complete if I would be able to have zero inventory in the third category. No, it is not going to be easy. Yes, it is going to venture into some territories that might even open pandora’s box. But the best part about communication is that it is two-sided. One-sided communications are just attempts, that are harmless if not replied to. Rather than taking these attempts as an attack on your ego, you should be thankful for the fact that at least you tried, and that was what it meant to you, worth a shot. So you can move on, with a ball in their court. Anyhow, you will have an answer to your question the next time your mind plays a memory of them. If you are lucky enough, you will rediscover some amazing people that were lost as life happened, due to wrongly translated emotions, burdened expectations and situations. Worth a shot?

    As I prepare to enter into my 30s with a year to spare, I want to be ready to be accepting enough for what my future holds, with the confidence that can come only by accepting what my past was. Acceptance about the people you have or have had in your life is just one of the many domains in which acceptance is required. It comes in different variants like your career, your family, life goals, even the meaning of life in general. But these are not the answers I am seeking. Maybe you are, and you should.

    I just want to be ready, so that if I decide to take the bull by its horns sometimes post 30-year mark, I also remember to let it breathe a little and flung me upside down for a while too. After all, it’s my friend for this lifetime, life itself.

  • B 3 0 7

    B 3 0 7

    Preparedness. That is the key to be acceptable of and comfortable in any given situation. Life changes, sometimes slowly over a period of time, or smack! right in your face overnight. But playing multiple simulated reruns of the situation in your mind helps in knowing exactly what to do when the time comes. People can call it overthinking too.

    However, the anomaly lies in the situations consisting of factors integral to your life, because the event maybe rehearsed, but the aftermath can only be predicted to a certain extent, and hence the preparedness would always be lousy at best. Hence it seeps in your life in ways you didn’t fathom, or didn’t want to think would fathom.

    The life that lied beyond the closed doors of B 3 0 7, still exists, in bits and pieces, in this universe. But the me that existed beyond it would only be able to make guest appearances in my life now. Like he comes and says hi whenever I am going out to buy momos, just in case I needed veg momos too, which is absurd. Or during the times when I return from the office to find the empty parking space filled, but with a different car. At times he makes me halt across these hawkers in case we need to buy Esse Lights.

    He does come in handy at times too, especially during shopping at malls, as his immunity to window shopping is godly. But mostly he comes in the form of reminiscence, like walking in the lift and glancing over the level 3 button before pushing the level 7.

    The thing that intrigues me about humans, is the fact that we do have a power to predict the future, by tracking the natural progression of things taking their due course. And hence humans also hold the power to change their future by causing an action to change the course of it. But we still choose to feel helpless due to a bizarre concept of freewill. So the situation should follow the desired course from the traditional one, not because we want so and will do things to ensure so, but because we think that the desired course is the better course. Or as if the situation has a conscience of its own which allows it to choose to occur in a certain way.

    How hard it is for us to accept the fact that our actions, or inaction cause the events in our lives to occur in a certain way? But then, even after knowing the same doesn’t make it easier to live with it. And maybe that’s why I end up departing with that part of me. It’s like breaking up with yourself on good terms. You know you wish well for each other, but also know would hurt each other more than doing good. So decide to walk on the separate paths with only happy memories kept alive.

    So, I guess I have broken up with the guy who thrived beyond the locked doors of B 3 0 7. Whatever he has taught me will always remain with me. But I knew what was coming, as they say, “all things, good or bad, come to an end”.

  • WHO IS THE ARTIST?

    WHO IS THE ARTIST?

    If people are blank canvas, their life journey is their artistic masterpiece under work. The relations they cater to, are the strokes of different, but unique vibrant colors which brings depth and perspective to the masterpiece. These strokes sometimes cross path, overlap each other, turning into an entirely different color altogether. Sometimes they barely brush by, or end up at the opposite ends of the canvas. The importance of these strokes however cannot be compared.

    Remember, people are the canvas, not the artist themselves. They are bound to find themselves lost in this chaotic collision of colors. Trying to pick up and identify which color belonged to whom, what was this colour again, how did this color even originate. The canvas would never be able to view and apprehend the beauty it holds inside, but only feel the torment and anguish of the jumbled up mess it thinks it represents, feeling animosity against the artist. Who is it though, the one who made the strokes? God? Fate? Karma?

    The only people who can visualize and appreciate the masterpiece you hold inside, are either the other canvas, or the artist themselves.

    Be the artist yourself.

  • SHEEP IN THE BIG CITY

    I just have 15 minutes before the clock strikes 12 and your B’day starts. So I am pretty rushed because, duh! time crunch.

    This is the first time ever that I am directly addressing you in any of my posts, so well that’s a first. Congratulations Ms. Sheeba Faruqui for getting this far! Now this time of the year has never usually been a, I dare say, favourable time for our “Frenemy” relationship. It’s the time for everything to go south, haywire and mayhem. Utter chaos.

    It’s been 21 years since we first crossed paths, 19 years since we actually have been near each other, 16 years since we started a mutually acknowledging relationship (based on utter dislike), 11 years since a friendship was moulded into an ever-changing shape, something which is still hard to decide how it looks.

    Now, you are the most intelligent girl I’ve come across. But your true strength has always been the amount of labour you put in in-spite of it. The clarity of your goals, your thoughts, the way you want your life, that has always fascinated me. Maybe because I’ve never been so driven. But same is the reason for my respect towards your zeal and efforts. We can fight over the most stupidest of things. Sometimes we don’t even try to understand each other, where we are coming from. But that has never stopped me in acknowledging the importance you have had, in one way or the other.

    Now I am already 5 minutes up, and this blog in itself is filled with the references directly aimed at you. So I have no clue as of what I could possibly gift you that would justify the bond we have had since these 21 years. So I would say the words which I don’t think I use very often.

    Thank You.

    Thank you for being the person you are. Because it has made me the person I am.

    Wishing you a very Happy B’day. I hope God blesses you with everything you ask Him of. And gives you the strength, to ask Him for anything you want.

    By the time I am ending this, it’s been 25 minutes late. I know you don’t care. Still, efforts count, right? 😛

    Now bring a smile to your pumpkin face and be happy, as I won’t be doing cliched things like calling you or texting you.

    This post though, is solely for you. 🙂

     

    P.S. Did you notice how we use Him for God? I think I’ll start using Him/Her from next post onward.

  • LITTLE THREADS OF SEPARATION

    SEPARATION – (noun) the action or state of moving or being moved apart.

    That is how the dictionary defines the word. But the beauty of it is what meaning it holds, even without a particular context. There itself lies the irony of it. A detailed discussion with a friend today suddenly made me realize the importance this word has held in my life. It has been a great teacher. That is why I treat both, the teacher and its teachings with reverence.

    Love, is like a fabric. Not a silk one, that’s just how you picture it. In reality, it is a fabric with the irregular texture, comprising of patches and holes. Some area of it seems worn out and the other feels quite new. Sometimes the fabric feels like a second skin, whereas at other times you realise that it just doesn’t fit your taste.

    Separation, thus can be compared with the cut placed on the bundle of this fabric you own, each time a piece is taken out of our life.

    My grandmother passed away when I was 14. I remember clearly, how my brain simply found itself unable to process the reality. I still feel that this statement lacks the ability to justify the depth of my inability to get in terms with it. Your parents always love you and have faith in you, same as mine. But Naani was a person who made me feel that there was a hidden power inside me, something about which I am still not aware of. In her eyes, I was the epitome of a good human being, brimming with possibilities. Even today, whenever I face a situation which leaves me clueless and raises questions at myself, the memory of my reflection in her eyes gives me an immense boost of confidence. It makes me believe, that I’ll definitely be able to come up with something somehow.

    My love towards her was the piece of fabric that had been cut a long time ago. Strangely, the cut was so clean that by the time I could comprehend her loss, the separated piece had already woven itself with my conscience in the form of an unlimited reserve of confidence based on her belief in me.

    But the transition is not so smooth each time. Not every piece of the fabric called love is cut with such finesse. On the contrary, most of the cuts just refuse to be neat. The struggle through which the pieces go when cut off, is clearly visible, not only on them but on the entire bundle itself. At times, the fabric is unwillingly torn apart into these pieces by others. In any case, what we end up with is a tattered piece of fabric, giving away loose threads from its edges. Unrequited love, unfulfilled love, incomplete love, failed love, these all are samples of the above-mentioned tattered piece. They are the ones which deteriorate over time, as the threads of the separation loosen up and disintegrate the fabric each time it is used, be it in as a memory, or a reference.

    However, these odd pieces, putting their threads of separation at the display, are the ones which have also taught me about the importance of the two key things. Acceptance and Closure. I cannot dare say that I have come even close to embrace either of these. But yes, I do accept the fact that they are the key to put the odd pieces into better use. Maybe weave them together to create something new altogether. A blanket of love, ending up the way love is, imperfect. A reminder of all the components that have been involved in the making of it. Maybe that will aid in finding a continuous piece of fabric that is constantly being used and doesn’t need to cut till eternity. Or it will just teach us how to cut it cleaner; cuts after cuts after cuts.

    Hence, Acceptance and Closure themselves are the sewing machine to stitch close the loose ends of the tattered piece of the fabric. They give a final definition to your complex feelings. They try to even out the torn edges, give it a seam maybe, to preserve them as a standalone memory. So you end up with the ability to recollect the old and once familiar warmth of the fabric, without the baggage. I just wish if the world was so ideal.

    These machines are quite costly. And no, you cannot just throw money to own them. The currency they deal in involves a combination of patience, empathy and most importantly, love. Sometimes they ask for self love, whereas in other cases, just the respect towards the love which once existed, irrespective of the presence or absence of its traces around. People who can shell out this cost with the blink of an eye can be deemed uber rich, marking less than 0.01% of the total human population. Normal people like us take our time, first to assess if the machines are worth it, because it will take a lot of time emotionally to collect the droplets of all three for it. Then some more, to actually go through the process.

    The sadly honest part is, majority of us decide against it. We decide to get rid of the piece itself. Why bother spending so much? Why put so much efforts to save something which is no longer a part of you? Let it rot or wither away and get lost in the passage of time. Even better if you could shove the piece of fabric in the other person’s throat and let them choke on it. Ain’t it convenient to blame others for what went down? “Chuck it and move forward” ranks in as the second best option. However I feel if you could go through the second option, we might not be talking about the same fabric altogether.

    Another lesson I have learned from separation is the beauty of a relationship. I learned to see it and appreciate it. Separation does that to you. You learn to understand the intricacies of a close knit relationship, and to respect it for what it is. I know that the word relationship in itself restricts the imagination to a limited examples in your life, but look wider. The truest essence of what an ideal separation is, could be found in your childhood memories.

    Your best friend when you were 6, do you have any clue where they are or what are they doing now?
    If yes, are you still in contact, in touch anyhow?
    Yes again?
    Then are they still your best friend?
    It’s most probably a no.
    Did you forget the person?
    No.
    The memories you had with them?
    As clear as they come.
    What happens when you tap into them?
    You end up feeling warm, nostalgic. You are completely aware of the fact that these days will not come again. Maybe you would like to revisit them together someday. But you don’t bet on it. You accept them for what they were, what they meant to you then and now, acknowledging their place and importance in your life.

    That’s how separation should ideally be. But we don’t live in a perfect world. I hardly think that the separations you will go through would end up even close. However, as the lines of one my all time favourite song goes –

    You’d have to walk a thousand miles
    In my shoes, just to see
    What it’d be like, to be me
    I’ll be you, let’s trade shoes
    Just to see what I’d be like to
    Feel your pain, you feel mine
    Go inside each other’s mind
    Just to see what we find
    Look at shit through each other’s eyes

    Because the most crucial thing which you must always remember is, the fabric called love gets cut in pairs. It’s never just about your bundle. These little threads of separation are possibly the only thing common left. Savour it.