Love of unknown

It was an immoral rain yesterday. Unyielding, uncompromising, unrelenting.
A tyrant!

I came out of a shop, near my place and was blinded by nothing in sight but the downpour
I contemplated on my next move

I could go back and wait for the rain to abate.
But the impatient me, and the beauty loving me trashed this idea and decided to get soaked and walk till home.

But this city of Bangalore is not so much for such adventurers. It does not entertain whimsical wishes like these on unconventional days like this one.

Cos there were pools of water on both sides of the road, with just a thin pathway visible right in the center of the road.
I hopped onto that center patch of visible road and started walking on it. SO, I was waling right in the middle of a busy road

But the traffic behind me started getting mad. I continued snootily giving deaf ear to all of them, but after a while the nasty looks I got from all around made me relent.

I again had 2 options. I could go back and wait under any of the shelters around me, or step on to my left, where an unknown pile of dirt, ditch awaited me

For someone who looks out for dust in every nook and corner, who uses hand gloves when any washing has to be done, who has to wipe or dust any place she touches..the 2nd option was blasphemous

But I have no idea why, I chose the 2nd one.
I clenched my teeth, asked my heart and mind to stop for a second and without paying heed to any of my other senses, put my feet into that pool

I had an exhilarating experience of surrendering to the unknown , to the pull of a whirlwind I have never experienced
I kept walking, unaware of what was hitting my feet..and totally not bothered.

Cos I knew I was going home
And everything will be taken care of, once I am there

While I kept walking, a mad wish came to my mind..I wished I could do the same in life.
And for a second I thought it might be as easy as this.

Just plunge in, and get blown away to smithereens, by inexplicable emotions and feelings I have never found or searched within me

The unwanted can become the wanted..if they are the unknowns and the paradoxes

I am for keeps

I am in Gurgaon - late in the night..a Saturday night
Smell of smoke in the air
I am in a bar, a happening one, as per the standards

But I dint quite enjoy anything inside the bar  till now, I was just trying to sway to my moods, which dint uplift
I had a few beer mugs, but then I am a pro and a few beer mugs do nothing for me now

But suddenly, while I waited for people to finish what they were doing, I sat on the bench outside
Half drunk, half asleep, I looked up

There it was, my moon..I looked around..

There were women, head bent while they text-ed away to someone
Their faces convoluted in some fake misery, over a false love, over an emotion they so wanted in life, that they resorted to faking

I looked up again at the moon, inhaled the smoke, it gave me a high which the beer mugs could now
I was drowning in a sense of deja vu..I was one of those women sometime
Drunk, texting and madly in love..with someone..or with myself?

I could inhale the smoke the whole night and not budge
I was falling in love again...with something..someone..or the moment
Nostalgia of some kind hit me strong

Delhi of some other time floated in front of me

I dont know what I remembered, who I recalled, but I remember remembering...
That I am for keeps..that who belongs to me can never get away from me

Siblings are the keeper of one's identity

I wish siblings knew each other and loved each other till the time they could, with all their hearts..and then lost touch once they moved on, in different directions

Cos sometimes the mapping of wonderful childhood and crooked present makes things all the more ugly

So, that they can be remembered by the sunny winters spent with tea-sipping and gossiping, the dance rehearsals and heart talks
And not the indifference which creeps in with time, not the distance which commences like a poignant wound

I run behind to capture the lost warmth, but each of our meeting slips it away..further..till I can no longer see it
And assume that it never was the way I imagined it to be

There was a time when everything which happened to me had to be linked with my sisters/cousins. The hidden meanings of things which only we could decipher, in our own strange ways..every single time the only thought in my mind would be "I have to go back and tell this to my sisters".

From a meaning-less glance from a cute boy, to meaning-ful feelings of our nascent hearts...from shredding apart meaning of every line of a song to .. counting the number of days we stayed without each other..

We built our childhood and adolescence in different hues

When in drunken stupor, I had this strong urge to call one of them..and just talk any crap.
With time those desires have died down. How I wish I could revive it, but it has reached a no man's land.

Now even something very important to me also goes unnoticed, un-talked  about. The sheen and richness gone. When did this happen?

 As a teenager I used to look at some of our adults and wonder how they could bitch about their own siblings to their spouses, and haughtily think that we will never grow apart..not an ounce from how we were.

We all live plain lives, most of us, al least I do. And what keeps us going are those bouts of exhilarating experiences we have had in our lives. Those rainbows in our lives, are the ones we want to recur in succession. With someone close, some city , some drink, some song.
And if I look back I guess my times with siblings & cousins have been the best..that is when they were...not anymore.

Now I dread my times with them, cos they will further make me believe that whats lost can never be revived.

They say change is inevitable, outgrowing one relation and growing into another is the way it is. But I refuse to agree with this decorum of life. If one can not sustain what was beautiful, then every thing beautiful in the present will lose its meaning to us gradually. If we can't love the ones the way we loved them earlier, but make new friends and progress with our life as if nothing has changed, then am sorry I dont belong to that category of people. For me friends could never replace family, my people, my childhood, my roots. If we drive ourselves away from them, we are rejecting our very roots. I am proud of what I was with you all, and my pride in anything new in life will always be based on what I had.

Or maybe we are just one dysfunctional family, which disintegrated with time..for no concrete reason? or is it just me feeling this way these days?

This post isn't meant to lash out at any of you sisters/brothers, specially you two who read this blog but never comment.
 But just a rhetoric in my mind, and trying to understand..the inevitable!

But I still remember that patch of sun on our bed, where we often huddled around  on late winter mornings, lazily flitting through one topic to another, in our innocence, in our love for life, in our glory. And we shifted our positions during all this, to capture that piece of sun, which shifted its position as the day went by

That piece of sun is what I will always remember and try to bring it back in my life, in different ways..

A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self. - Marian Sandmaier

Under stress

Have you observed yourself as a 3rd person, when you are going thru a crisis, of any kind?

I have noticed one thing about myself
 Under a stressful condition, I become a better me..effortlessly

When a relationship breaks, while my inside is decaying, I help others with their
As if that would save my crumbling parts

I am more eloquent,I am taking charge of the situation.
Trying to run-over negativity, which is sometimes produced by external people as well

I dont give my mind a moment of rest, am exhausting myself with alternatives to come out of that situation
They might not be the best ones, yet I dont stop
I just know that by doing so, I will salvage something somewhere

Its like a constant movement might turn the events which are yet to happen

Even if they all turns out futile, I will save parts of me in the process

Some call it denial, but I guess its just another me, which surfaces
And in-spite of the heartbreak happening, I grow to love myself little more

If I were someone else, I would definitely love the person I become sometimes

Strength of the weak

"Every woman needs one man in her life who is strong and responsible. Given this security, she can proceed to do what she really wants to do-fall in love with men who are weak and irresponsible." – Richard J. Needham

Though this quote is more on a lighter note, yet I can see the seriousness and truth of it all
 I am sure we all have felt this, some or the other time in our lives
BTW, this applies to men as well
 
But here I am not sure what is weak or whats strong..
Is weak the one who revels in every move we make, every twitch of our eyebrow, every passing of expression on our face
Then we mark this person as weak, weak for loving us to bits like this
Which is actually his/her strength

Or is strong actually the weak men, who make us feel weak and clingy...in their arrogance and convoluted self-esteem
They do whats possible in them to bring the weakest in us come to surface, and turn that into their strength?
And thrive on our weakness?Deriving their strength from it?

The weak might be the bailey Irish cream, which is gentle on your nerves and gives you a mild buzz and their counterparts (aka strong) could be tequila shots which hits you instantly, makes you have more and more of it without thinking of consequences, and then gives a serious hang over when the buzz is gone

And if you love outside marriage, are you willing to leave the comforts of your bailey Irish cream for the charms of a tequila shot? Not many, very very few for sure

So all you women/men out there, who aspire to find love outside marriage, have you ever thought why you still cant leave your spouse.?
Even though s/he lacks the spunk you have, or lacks the mystery which gives you a kick

I will tell you why..

More than societal thing, or the family pressure, its your own desire of acceptance which makes it impossible to break the chains(unless there is a pressing need like adultery, violence and the likes)

We all seek acceptance, from the world, from people we love
When we grow old..we feel the world stops accepting us gradually
We feel that our charisma, which made us glow and gloat earlier, isnt enough to be loved by the changing ways of the world

The world belongs to the youth, thats a fact. Look at all the advertisements around you, they are out there to impress the young, to get them to like what they have to sell. For old ones, maybe pension plans, and for housewives the soap operas.

So we need that one person, who has seen us in our glory, in our hay days
All that we lost, is stored in that one person
We want that person around, cos s/he makes us look good
Even if we feel we lost the enigma and the charm we had earlier, we know that this one person has known us at our best
S/he has seen what we were capable of, how many hearts we could break and how many wounds we could mend

This weak person's undeterred belief in us, will see us thru the mess that we create for both of us
Even when we feel we are no more in love with that person, we can no let go
Maybe it is is another form of love, Self love transcending into love for another

Thank God, we keep our brains in check, just that bit, to never lose that one person
And we realize, life is a little more about giving in to madness
Self obsessed, selfish piece of pests that we are!


But one moment of that streak of madness, I see in another, my dark thoughts take over and I leave all my rationale...and am ready for a tequila shot

Some days I feel there is a black corpse running thru my veins

the day is shrouded in tons and tons of darkness

darkness emanating from unknown things

darkness of the sort, which only the soul can be

And I feel my heart is on the edge of the cliff,

some one just has to tip me off, just a little bit

And I will be in that overwhelming abyss

It was beautiful..thats it..

..and nothing more I can say about the place, thats switzerland.

So words and even my pictures might not do justice to it. So,I wont go into explaining of how it was..and just leave a few pics and the stories behind them here.

The view from my balcony

Wine festival at Chardonne..and I got tipsy

"We must live in interesting times" - Chinese say it. Live band at wine festival and me and my niece danced to that

Finishing our glasses to get it refilled

Sunny and beautiful in Evian

 

Behind me is the place where the famous Evian water comes from

 

Thats 140 meters high fountain in Geneva

United nations and the big chair in front of it

New girl in Geneva old town, old towns are so charming

Thats my trip to Montreux all alone, the animated graffitis were cute. And thats my pink skirt with blue stilettos, suggested by my niece

 

On my way to Montreux in a Ship

The clock tower at Bern where every hour some figures come out and present a show, we missed it cos of the beer talks

 

The beer talks in Bern, what a pretty city

Thats the view from rose garden, I could stare and just dream

Switzerland it was!

I have been back from my trip long back, but a few things have gone topsy turvy at my end
So, I have been trying to handle them and my blogging has taken its toll

Just before I embarked on my journey, something went wrong. Yet, I tried eradicating it from my mind, cos one does not go to Switzerland every day. And if I could not enjoy it just cos of some malfunction in life, then I feel I could not deal with anything which goes amiss in my life

So, with that mindset, I spent my time at the ariport having beer my myself, reading "Love" by Toni Morrison(more on this on my blog later) and talking to people over phone, to let the storm in my mind pass

Ok, a bit about the journey itself.

I went to Zurich via Colombo and the airline had arranged for a 1 day stay in a beautiful 5 star hotel by sea side, which was a treat in itself. The only glitch is : Being all alone, one can not make much of all the beauty in the world.

My 10-11 hours journey from Colombo to Zurich was spent parts in puking(yeah my usual), parts in trying to evade conversation by the strange man sitting next to me, parts in "Love" and parts in watching movies on the inflight entertainment kit.

So this strange man sitting next to me, was a kannadiga Brahmin, who would offer a prayer before any meal.
The moment  I saw him, I had an unnerving feeling that he would try and talk to me. I tried burying myself in book , but he started off in that typical fake accent(very typical of people in south who have been abroad for a long time).
       Its like, mixing sambhar in pasta, if you know what I mean.
They would force a foreign accent, but right in the middle of a sentence, their "Hech" for "h" and "intilligint" for "intellignet" gives them away.(No offense meant to anyone here, we all have colloquial accents, specific to our region and nationality, but faking it makes it all the more hilarious).
He started off by asking me if I stay in Switzerland, from then on he went till my 10th standard results and mark-sheet and percentage and finally he told me I should do MBA.(I felt like I was speaking to my mother).
Then finally he expended all information about himself(maybe asking about me was a trick to actually speak about himself).
He teaches mathematics in Switzerland. But along with that, he kept mentioning how he is into too many things. Jewellery design, interior decorations etc etc. And that he has many "important conferences" coming up. How he has a mansion in most posh area in Mumbai, sea-link. It seems his house will be a place to visit, such is the interiors he is designing. "I am into too many things", was his reply for everything.
Then I saw him trying to chat up air-hostesses and asking them "Do you have time?", some of them gave him cold shoulder, some entertained with feigned politeness and camouflaged boredom. And all this while I tried hiding a smirk.
He would disappear for long hours from seat(maybe trying his luck with air hostesses at the back), which was a boon for me, as then I could extend my legs onto his seat and curl myself to sleep.

Well,he did help me in the end, by telling me as to where to take the train to Laussane. My final destination was Vevey and I was getting picked up at Laussane by my brother in law.

It was a short trip, just 6 days(mis-management) yet I ca not write the zist of it in 1 post.
But, for sure, much remains to be explored(as Italy is still a dream).
I realized that this place is not meant to be visited with sister, brother in law and 2 kids. Its difficult to manage all that I aspired for, in 6 days, with kids falling ill and the general lethargy which is akin to carrying kids around in prams.
Its a place to be explored with someone who has the same madness and rush and lack of time.

But let me just tell you how all of it still appears in my head, in a jiffy.

The magnificent hill and lake which I could see daily from balcony, the wine festival where live music and dance kept me in high spirits, me and my niece playing songs and dancing in the balcony in late evening.
That was just B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. The growing dusk, the hill in front, my kind of music and some memories flashing in my mind while I danced with this sweet little thing who is growing up into a pretty girl. Can't believe 8 years back I was teaching her how to say "Tea"  & "Topsy" & "Teddy"(She caught all words starting with "T" as early as 11 months), and today she is telling me which colour sandle should I wear with my pink skirt.
"Blue goes with pink Sumi Mausi, so wear Mamma's blue stilettos". The way memories get created in cocoons of your heart

The days were so long, they lapped up the night in their over-bearance. And the night came tip toeing around day, as if intimidated by it, and disappeared before I could bury myself in its mysteries.
My glowing tan, in just 2 outdoors. Running to switch trains which are just 5 minutes apart, One reaching at 9.38 and another leaving at 9.43. And dot 9.43 it would be, you could probably adjust your watch to match the trains arrival and departures, its was amazing!

Going to Montreux all alone, sitting and having beer with sister at Bern, talking as usual of old times and things hinting that it might lead to a fight. But maybe the beer or age kept us mellow.Walking up to rose garden and the splendid view of the city from there, P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S

All that will follow in other posts, but let me substantiate this post with few pictures

Me and my sis, on my first day at Vevey, at beer festival

 Me and my Aduli - my niece and my friend

Thats me and her 8 years back, time ran out on us

We girls, when we landed at Evian(France)