Moving Away

All my life I've tried holding on to things-people,memories and emotions, seeing them slip through like sand in my hand.The harder I have tried, the faster they slipped through.

The very people who were my closest turned into strangers overnight.Such has been a pattern of life, a viscious circle.Life has often left me at crossroads while people moved into new settings, into a new world, leaving behind a string of memories-bitter and sweet, and many unsaid and unanswered questions.

The one act which unsurped your ability to believe. How then, you forgive yourself?

You forget the bitterness and the anger goes away, but somehow you never forgive yourself.Months and years pass and you think the wound has healed, but it never does. Strange demons lurk at every corner, demons within you.

You wonder where the party went and why noone said goodbye.It's not that I havent forgiven,its that I wasnt asked for forgiveness.Its not that I havent fought to rationalize and make peace , its that no one understood the nature of the peace I made. It's not that I dont understand others moving into a new world, its that as a faded memory I am doomed to disappear from the circle i once belonged. As people move away your dreams and beliefs move away with them.Your notions of love,loyalty,fidelity,morality,innocence and friendship are warped, never to be the same again.

What was my crime I wonder, why this exile? Why take away my right to all the memories we had ,of the long nights and the umpteen messages, of the "Kya hai" and the hugs and the kisses we shared.May I have a moment on the rooftop?

Love

Love-The thing we all seek, the feeling we all want to experience, the experience we all want to savor and yet this is the thing which has eluded me all my life.
What is love? Is it giving or taking? Or is it the selflessness by which you treat a person irrespective of whether it is reciprocated or not.
Does love take years to build or is it that one instant when realization hits you. Is it just an extended infatuation, attraction or something deeper? Is it everlasting, transcending barriers of distance and time or does it die out-like everything else? Is it an emotion born out of rationale or is it as irrational as it gets. Is it compromise or is it mutual understanding? Is it and extension of friendship or something so distinct that though friends cannot be lovers, lovers have to be friends?
Is it a connection, a bond that may take an instant to build or it may take years to be realized? Or is it just a matter of convenience, to be indulged in till you had time and inclination and then to be forgotten as you enter a new world, new settings. Is it a feeling for which one may wait till the end of the world and for the other to be conveniently forgotten?

Is love a one way or a two way street. In life you have to give to receive, and receive to give.

Love for me was giving-without receiving. Love for me was selflessness-without appreciation. Love was about missing-and being forgotten in return. Love was transcending barriers of time and distance-and seeing ppl move away into their new world. Love was giving space-till there was an empty void of empty promises in me. Love for me is still irrational-because I continue loving, caring, supporting without expecting anything in return.

Lucky are the ones who find mutual love. In my case all I got was empty words, false hopes, feelings expressed in maybe jest while I still clung on to them, and their memories. Maybe the love was not mutual, or strong enough, or one sided, but then that’s what this post is all about-to understand why, by understanding what.

Love for me is an overrated emotion.

The Maximum city

Bombay-The biggest,fastest and the richest city of India.The city that never sleeps,the city of dreams,the city with spirit of steel.The city of the teeming locals and Dabbawalas,the city where weather has two names-Monsoon and Humidity.It's a city of Malabar hill and Dharavi juxtaposed together.A city where no one can be claustrophobic staring out at the sea from a Marine Drive. A city where you understand the meaning of the term "PDA" staring out at Reclamation and Bandstand,and a city which is always running,chasing a hope.

A city where "Enigma" crowd will gladly step out of its Merc to eat out at "Bade Miyan".Its the maximum city where everyone takes a shot-for a better life. A city where the chain of MacD's coexist with scores of Vada pao eateries.The city with its own lingual identity of a "Bumbaiyya Hindi". Its a city where Real estate prices in Nariman Point will equal that of Manhatten. The city of "Bollywood" where no Mumbai darshan tour is complete without seeing a "Jalsa" or a "Mannat",its a city of Wannabes and Page 3, all wanting a tryst with 5 minutes of fame. The city where you'll get a fag,cutting chai and food even at 3 at night,a city never in darkness,ablaze with al the neons,pubs and discs.A city buzzing with a contagious energy which grabs you as soon as you step out of "VT" marvelling its architecture.Its a city where solitude is a luxury.Its a city where everything centres around business and whats in it for me? Intimacy and privacy is a elusive entity here. Its a city where thousands escape disillusionment every night in the countless bars tucked away in every nook and corner of the city-waiting for a better tomorrow. Its a city where people are perpetually struggling- right from the locals,to the traffic,to meeting deadlines,balancing the personal and professional life,maintaining relations. As go the words-" Aye dil hai jeena mushkil yahan, jara hat ke,jara bach ke,ye hai Bombay meri jaan".

reliving the past

My two years in Bombay are coming to an end.It remains for me as impersonal a city as it was two years ago. What for me defines Bombay?Bombay for me means so much i hold near to heart,yet it means nothing.Behind all the glitz and glamour and a "happening" life, essentially lie lonely hearts.As i look back, Bombay consists of a set of memories,vivid,so life like-yet doomed to fade away.As the days pass by I desperately try clutching to them-recreate them for one last time- before things,life and relations are altered forever.Im reminded of a friend asking-"why do all things we cant live without have to come to an end?"As soon as i started making bonds, it was time to move on.Its time to readjust and prepare yourself for your new life,new place,new friends.We all will form new support systems,people to move out with,watch movies with,go on walks with,go out for lunches and dinners with, the new will replace the old-as is the law and some will move on in life and some wont-or maybe they would.As of now moving on seems to me as incomprehensible and waiting for these memories when im alone fills me with dread but as they say-the show must go on.The things , the people and the life i had learnt to take for granted and learned not to live without has shaken me from my complacency and would soon be gone. The times are about to change, yet instead of looking ahead with a sparkle in my eye, i find myself looking back wistfully willing time to come to a standstill,wanting to recreate and relive all that which stood dear to me these two years for one last time.

Born Free

Freedom to people has many different connotations. For me ,its a absense of boundaries, its about the freedom from the shackles of a narrow mentality,its about respecting yourself, it is respecting the responsibility that freedom thrusts on you.
We delude ourselves to say we are free but are we really? How many of us enjoy the freedom to do our own thing,,when was the last time we were happy for ourselves, when was the last time we subjugated our will for the happiness of someone?
Freedom is the right to pursue your own happiness,do what you think is right. Freedom is to chart your own path than follow the mob. Freedom is to decide the definations of right and wrong, set the limits of morality by one's own judgement and not to abide by societal norms.
Freedom is the joy of asking "why", the right to ask "how",the power to ask "why not". Freedom is testing the limits and then respecting them.
Freedom is the power to be yourself,its the celebration of life-and living it on its own terms.
Freedom is never subjugating our will for the majority, its about individualism.
Freedom for me is the transition from conservativeness to moderness,narrow mindedness to broadening of prespectives, horizons and mentality.
Freedom is all of this and im glad i was born free

the curse

Do you know what is the biggest curse? To love somebody and not be loved in return.To care for someone and not be cared in return, and what if such a scenario was the pattern of your life? What if you were never held in high esteem by people whom you selflessly devoted yourself to?
What if all your life, trying to give happiness to people you cared for, all you could manage was bad memories?What if your bad always outweighed your good?
Moments like these and I recount and wonder what those "many" bad memories were.I try recounting the innumerable instances when a innocent leg pulling,my own moods,some act,some words made me give my cared ones bad memories.
What if it all makes you believe in yourself a little less? What if it shakes the very core of your beliefs,and every living minute you wonder-where and what did you lack?
What if you were only a existance to people who mattered,a thing to be tolerated,lived with but never to be trusted,never to be respected and never to be really cared about?Did your one act unsurp all the acts?
What when your most prized people start refusing you,when the camaradrie, the sense of ease goes away with your each act being analyzed in your own eyes every second?
What if the rifts start growing too large and inspite of the efforts to build bridges,you always loose,being reminded of your failures-to build bridges,to build friendships,to build relations,to build trust,to build respect,to build love.
As you loose every single person you ever felt close to ,you have this sinking feeling in your gut and you ask the most basic question of them all-am I a good human being?Do I have to live with the curse all my life?

Memories

A freak scrap from a long lost friend stirred something in me and brought back a flurry of memories.It also brought pangs of loss.I read a friend's blog and she mentioned about memories fading,but do they really?Do we ever really move away? Forget-And Forgive?For me the memories are so vivid,memories of a lost love,memories of lost friendships,memories of all the places i visited,of every laugh i laughed and every tear i shed.Memories of Shimla and the idyllic childhood,Mhow with its joy of adolescence,Kota and the angst n pain of teenage,Bagalkot-of a lost love and Kolkata the nearest i got to what i'll call the good life.
Each one of us has certain memories associated with a place,a person or a object.A song on the road, a choclate cake,a visit to a mall.
In the end its these memories which defines us and shapes our outlook.They appear as a smile on our lips or a tear in our eyes.They are all about contentment,yearning,pain and a search-for answers,and sometimes questions,of hope courage and strength. They are about the long strolls,hand in hand or the first kiss,memories of the first fight.Its about the first date,the first gift.Memories are the endless phone conversations with ur loved one.Memories are the first achievement u felt proud of -and the subsequent ones,they are the failures and how u emerged stronger with each experience.Memories of your first goof-up,memories of ur stage fright.Memories for me are about friends
While i sit and look out at the rain outside and think about the memories from my earliest recollection it seems im seeing a kaleidoscope of my life pass by and i think-Do memories really fade away?

the jungle

The mundane life calling to me crush the boredom and make me free
Its a jungle out there where the strong rule the roost
You have to be fast u have to be cunning or you will be devoured prey!!
Civilization and urbaneness oh what a myth we are all animals in the end
We decieve because deception is the key
We bicker and plot and bad mouth people, do animals do that? are we better then or worse off?
We pull people down, we are jealous,we get insecure-the bane of living in a urban jungle
We have no strenght,we have no speed on our mind power do we feed.
We play mind games, we win physcological victories,we can hurt others more mentally than physically oh yes we are at the top of the food chain, the high point of evolution!!
Yet we can feel,we can be happy, we can be sad,we can sacrifice and we can love, we get attached and we help. Its a jungle but a civilized one..we are the best because we can think.