If nothing else works, try yourself

People universally tend to think that happiness is stroke of luck, something that will descend upon you like fair weather if you're fortunate enough. But thats not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into the happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you dont, you would leak away your innate contentment.

Was reading "Eat,Pray,Love"(Yes I finally found my copy. If you are diligent, you can get what you want), and came across above lines.

I stopped here and thought "This is is how exactly I think and see happiness as!"

Happiness is abound, it does not have a theory to it, its forms are multifold
You are the keeper of your own happiness

You define your own potent mix of that happy feeling, which gives a spring to your steps
Let that be a memory of a forgotten song, a drunken brazen night, a kiss, sweet texts, laughter with people who get you , an unforgettable wedding, those glances exchanged with a crush
Maybe its sipping coffee all alone in an airport lounge, or reading a book on a rainy day with a cup of coffee

It could also be about something which never happened, or something you love dreaming about

Is it the smell of incense on durgo pujo, or the possibility of a  romance, or the memory of it? An enthralling performance by you and you regaling in the reverence of audience, or your own idea of how grand you are..

Dig it out, inhale your happiness..let it take whatever to be happy..just dont let go...
You have taken happiness from this world, its people, its beauty...give it back by retaining all of it..in any wierd form as you please..

Keep it pulsating, raw and effervescent..its yours..

And once I finished thinking, I read the next few lines, which is what I was thinking just a while ago

All the sorrow and trouble in this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler n Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. I can see where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or(at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is therefore not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your miseries, gets you out of the way. You cease being and obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then you are free to server and enjoy other people.

Father figure

My upbringing could be labelled as extremely un-conventional, by Indian standards
I never had a male member in the family, who dominated the household

My father not the archetypical indian father, what with each of us having a different surname, more like a second name than the family name which people usually carry

When my other girlfriends spoke of how they would have fun while their respective fathers were at work, and had to behave properly once the man of the house was home, I felt disconnected
Cos it was exactly the opposite in my house

We would sit late in the mornings, on holidays, sitting with tea and papa
Talking of what love is all about..my father reading excerpts from "Brother's Karamazov" to us
Ma getting angry and probably jealous, cos she had to cook and miss being part of that gang

And somewhere amidst all this, we(mainly I) became feminists(!?)
Well well, this word "feminist:" has such nasty connotations nowadays,  that saying it makes me feel like an old hag who is out there to kill all men
And the whole essence of it is gone, by all this humbug created around it, by some men/women

 But secretly I wished I had something similar to say, like my other friends. This duality lent them such an air of mystery and exclusiveness that I missed being that girl. I envied that they were more special than I was, who was given all the liberty in the world. As if no one cared!

Maybe thats the reason why seeing an elderly man anywhere makes me respectful towards him, brings out the gentler side of me
Many a times in my moments of distress, I always imagined a huge hand on my head, patting me and saying "It will be fine, I am there". And that someone is a man, a man who knows me inside out

All that makes me think...
Is it that inspite of all this liberation talks, women actually want and need to be subdued?
Is there a desire in them to be ruled? Is that the law of nature?
Do we have this inherent need to be dominated, is that the only way they can love a man?Do we all women need a man who tells us you are nothing, you mean something only cos you are attached to me?

Are we all looking for that "father figure", who tells us and controls us in a way which makes us respect him?

I mean if I have to marry, I will always look for someone who is either my equal or better. In terms of money as well as personality.
But for a man, a pretty wife is pretty much fine. Her education,job are just fancy stuff which they might like and admire. But not a must. Why dont men have such mandates as well?

I think its a catch 22 situation, for at least women like me.
I would like to be controlled by a man, but the kind of control a man exercises, without actually owning me and my heart, makes me refute it.

Some men try to be God, even before they do anything close to being a God.

Whenever I sit in front of God's deities in my house, even for a few seconds, I feel peace.
I feel I am taken care of, that I will never be mistaken by almighty.
That I dont have to fight for smallest of my human rights with him/her.
Be it changing your surname when you get married, to your role change from a daughter to a daughter in law, from assuming you would leave your job always to accompany your husband in his ambitions...etc etc

My GOD - s/he does not judge me for any and every thing, s/he loves me like someone who loves a butterfly full of colors, for my beauty and for my mischief..
There are no questions big enough to be answered, as everything I am is known to him
I can sit in his/her cradle and be everything that I ever wished to be, and s/he just indulges me
While I value him, for being all this and strive to be the woman of his desires

If a man can make me feel all of that, then maybe he can be my God!

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