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“I wish I would have come in his life earlier! I don’t like the fact that there was someone else in his life before me!”…She said.

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I see life as an ‘Assembly-Line’ and people as ‘Work-In-Progress’! We go through a lifelong process of evolution in which we pass through various steps and stages! At each step, someone has been deputed with an assigned task to chisel or shape us towards what we are ordained to become…eventually!

That’s why your-one’s Ex (be it ex-lover, ex-friend or ex-employer) deserves immense respect and gratitude from you! More so, because who you have in your life now is a finished-goods, who – as a raw-material – was handled by those Exes! Who you find ‘loving and lovable’ is a result of processing-pain and learning cost borne by those Exes!

…They made what you own today!

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Well! They wrongly say ‘Someone somewhere is made for you’!

The correct version is…“Someone somewhere is being made for you”!

A human is made up of four parts – Body…Mind…Heart….and Soul!

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One of the experiences which shaped my ‘emotional awareness’ happened way back, but I remember it so vividly as if it is happening in front of my eyes…

They were all sitting in a line outside, as it was that God’s day-of-the-week! As I bent to serve the item I was allotted, I stopped in front of him because eating with his head down, he was the only one who didn’t respond to my catering…

As I repeated my call, he looked up as if was woken up from some thought-nap! I smiled and asked if he wanted it. He said a polite ‘No’! I sat on my knee and further insisted as I would to someone my own… He smiled and took it!

As I stood back to take a breather after one round, my eyes went back to him! And suddenly something melted inside me…because…I realized that he was weeping! Chewing the food… holding a bite in one hand…and wiping tears with another! Well, as he ate…tears kept rolling down almost right throughout …

That day…I learnt that Craving goes much beyond mere body!

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One of my favorite stories is the one in which a person goes daily to a prostitute, to…talk!

…because he is lonely!

Yes… Craving does go beyond mere body!

Indifference of your own people hurts more than cruelty of others…  

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The road was so busy even in the waning hours of the evening that I, coming back from an appointment with the physician, had to take a ‘U-turn’ shorter than I would have preferred otherwise. As I turned the steering, a car stopped exactly where the curve of my ‘U’ ended.  His abrupt stop at an unlikely place was credited to the roadside food-stall…

I had to push the brake and with already-inside restlessness and dizziness, I was absolutely clueless. I looked at that person and gestured a request to move ahead or back slightly, which he responded to with one hard stare and a popular swearword. Till then, people on both sides of the road had started honking their horns, sticking their neck out or using their own versions of the ‘four-letter-word’!

In the end, I somehow managed to complete the ‘U’ without much accommodativeness received. As we drove ahead… after one-odd silent minute, my relative said ‘you must be feeling hurt because of that man’! My reply to him was “No! What hurt me more were the faces on the roadside…with expressions ranging from ‘sadistic grin’, ‘coldhearted gaze’ to…‘no expressions’!

He said, “Imagine how it would feel in other city or country? At least, this is our own city…’

“That’s why it hurts more…” was my reply.

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It’s the U-turn that pinches!

Manoj Bajpai says that he wanted to end his life after he was rejected for NSD, because he thought he could not achieve anything… Rajesh Khanna said he wanted to end his life after superstardom, because he thought there was nothing left to be achieved!  

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What is it about death that attracts us so much? Why do we avoid talking about it in the good-times and just can’t stop thinking about it when the clouds shroud us? Why do we suddenly get philosophical in graveyards? But then, bathe before entering our house after attending a funeral?

Why do we listen agape to near-death survivors and bend in front of those who claim to know its mysteries? What makes it the ultimate ‘tool for emotional-blackmail’ or ‘hope for eternal-relief’? But then, why do we wake up sweating profusely during dreaming about it (ours, or someone ours)?

Well! Right from one end of the spectrum (religion) to the other end of it (science), and all in between… everything has been trying to probe into this existential question; and though none of them has deciphered it, on-the-way they have discovered everything else we call a ‘part of life’!

It’s amazing how it is the only certain thing and has everything uncertain about it…And, our whole life seems to be a never-ending (yet futile) journey to bring some certainty to it! Well! Whatever it is, it’s for sure that each one of us will enter a dark tunnel with no knowledge of where it ends, without knowing if something actually exists at the other end…

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What??

Are you expecting some sort of logical conclusion to this post? Some ‘isms’… some truth?

Sorry!!! I am just a pseudo-intellectual trying to scratch the surface of many phenomena way beyond my limited ability to comprehend and envision. Well! Possibly, the only time I can talk about it with ‘authenticity & authority’ is after I myself would enter the tunnel at a point-of-time ordained…

But Alas! Then neither I would be able to share it…nor you would like to hear from me…

PS: In case you are wondering if I had too much on the weekend, let me tell you, I don’t drink… 🙂

“Why do people tend to wear their struggles like medals?”…came to my mind as I overheard those two men attempting to outdo each other in showing off how much they have suffered in their lives!

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Well! I don’t understand why people compare their sufferings? After all, pain is such an individual concept…so personal in nature that it can never be measured for two persons on one common continuum; and then benchmarked or put side by side.

It comes in all shapes and sizes…     

I have seen people suffering loss of their parents, and then have also seen the ones whose parents are causing them huge emotional-trauma. I have seen people missing that they never had siblings and also the ones who wished they actually never had one.

I have seen people suffering because they couldn’t get the ones they loved, and also the ones who got them but are now suffering equally in their very hands. Well! There are people suffering due to lack of friends and then ones who are suffering because of them.   

I have seen successful people contemplating a voluntary-end as intensely as the ones who never found their footing. The fact is…You could drive a sedan through the driveway of a swanky mansion into the Oberois…and still be as unhappy as the one on the footpath!

It is all…because ‘pain’ is so ‘irrationally private’ that you just cannot understand, estimate or juxtapose.           

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People often ask me why I don’t talk much about my suffering and pain?

Well! I know pretty well that…Those who have caused it would never accept…Those, for whose sake I have borne it, would never acknowledge…and…Those, who I will share it with, would say “Arre! Ye to kuchh nahin hai! Mere saath to….”

So, rather than getting into this game, I prefer to say “Nahin! Main Changa hoon Ji!”

“Na jaane mere dil ko kya ho gaya…” the evergreen DDLJ-melody made me smile as the bicycle rider crossed me, singing aloud to himself…on a relatively quieter road!   

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The most symptomatic representation of one’s current state of ‘quality of life’ is his feeling when he is not accompanied by others – Does he feel ‘alone’ or ‘lonely’? Well! What apparently seems ‘being unaccompanied’…is technically ‘being in your own company’!

Beyond all the masks that you wear with the people around and all the illusions you create about your so-called social being…at the end of the day, you go back to yourself! So, how do you feel when you are only with yourself – Bored? Apprehensive? Restless? Empty? or Fulfilled? Revitalized? At peace?      

Well! In your life, the person in whose company you will spend maximum time is…‘You’! In fact, right from your first cry to the last hiccup, the only permanent person in your life is ‘You’, rest all are temporary…they come and go!

Through all the crests & troughs and glories & oblivions…witnessing your evolution from a nameless face to a faceless name…stands only one assured presence – Yours! You got to do enough, to make that presence conducive…as that’s the Litmus-Test of the sort of life you are living!

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I felt like humming back…“Ho gaya hai tujhko to pyaar sajana…”

Yes! It is all about…‘Loving thyself!”

PS: I hate this ‘thy and thou’ style…But to be honest, it does make you look more intellectual than you can ever pretend to be 🙂 🙂 !

For committed relationships, don’t choose a person who is good towards you…rather choose a person who is good towards most; because former is good by choice, and latter is good by ‘nature’…

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There are times when because of necessity or proximity, you spend a lot of time with someone. And as a result, you develop certain shared-space. This predictability is assuring…this ‘habit of someone’ is really comforting!

There are times when someone fills a void in your life – void born out of low self-esteem or loneliness! And when that person caters to your need of ‘feeling good about yourself’ you start enjoying that ‘high’…that ‘importance’!

There are times when you like a person – either get infatuated with looks, impressed with intellect, attracted to presence or awed by worldly belongings. And if it is reciprocated, the whole feeling of a ‘prized possession’ makes you feel exclusive!

But all these are reasons too fragile to found a lasting commitment on!

Well! Beyond a person’s assets, appeal and attitudes lay a person’s fundamental self – the basic nature! Dig for it, and see if you find it worth living with…because eventually that’s what you end up living with!        

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Permanents shouldn’t be based on temporaries!