Inking The Thinking.

What’s your coffee like?

We are all broken. Yes, you read it right. We are all broken, in some way or the other. A heartbreak, death, failure, lost friendship, loneliness, disease – the demons are endless and varied. It’s a spectrum, where every person has their individual place reserved. Yet, we fail to acknowledge, accept, deal with such a simple truth. We fail to be a support, a shoulder, a helping hand to others. We choose to not look beyond ourselves. We worry our own worries, magnify our own problems, fail to rejoice life’s little moments of happiness, forget to be kind to others, judge galore and appreciate paltry.

No one, not you, me, the richest, or the strongest, the oldest, or the holiest is perfect – perfection is an illusion. Our scars help us stand out, tell our stories, make us human, be our lessons. There’s nothing wrong with pulling down your walls and opening up to others. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength, a strength which not many have, a strength which gives you the courage to love back even with a broken heart. It’s okay to be scared, afraid of another scar, fearsome of the negativity others may poison you with, but it’s also okay to trust, to take small steps towards an outstretched helping hand, to acknowledge another’s love, to shed the cloak of invisibility, to remove the mask of a smile.

Life may seem difficult when you’re facing it all alone. But you don’t have to. Help comes to all those who ask for it. You just need to ask. There’s a heart out there which will make your breaks whole. Don’t let go of that hope. Also. Be that hope to others.

Graciously Yours!

Pulled Apart.

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I’ve come a long way,

From that fateful day,

Where all I could think of was

Getting you to stay,

While all you did was push me away.

Now and then, things would sway,

Giving me hopes that you would stay,

But alas that wouldn’t happen,

Not how I wanted, anyway.

“For the baby’s sake,” I would say,

The little brown eyes would see your way,

But you would turn away,

Tears welling up in your eyes,

The battles you faced were bigger anyway.

There were days, when you were happy and gay,

And others when you would look out at the bay,

I would sit beside you all day,

Waiting for you to let me in on your thoughts.

Worse became the passing day,

Your smile was a needle in a stack of hay,

All day home we made you stay,

Afraid you would fall prey,

To the darkness we pulled you from.

But you fell into it, day after day,

Too late for us to mend the way,

“You deserve to be happy,” I’d say,

And that “together we would slay”

But you got addicted to the pain.

When I found you that day,

On the floor as you lay,

To you I wanted to say,

That to be weak once a while was okay,

But it was much more than you could take.

With your life you chose to pay,

To rid yourself of the darkness of the day,

In our hearts you still stay,

But not the way I wanted anyway,

The guilt of failing you still noosed tight.

Graciously Yours!

Picture Courtesy : Pinterest

Thought Flash #6

If marriages are indeed made in heaven, are you telling me God actually went about match making on the basis of caste? Or religion? Or even for that matter on the basis of gender?

Souls, as per last understanding, were gender-less. Caste-less. And religion-less. So how can my soulmate be from the same religion or caste as me?

Shouldn’t arranged marriages and ‘matches are made in heaven’ be mutually exclusive?

Graciously Yours!

P.S. : This post is by no means an attack on your personal beliefs. I’m rather questioning mine.

Marmee!

She’s flawed. Yet she’s perfect.

She’s elegant. She’s hardworking. She’s barely tired. She’s always concerned.

She taught me to accept nothing lesser than what I deserve. She made me bold. She proved women are at par with men.

She put me to sleep on long days. She stroked my hair telling me how proud I made her. She let me make up my mind about what is right and what wrong.

She taught me life. She learnt from me too. She shared her mistakes, overlooked mine. She broke rules. Yet she respected them.

She let me fly free. She brought me back to the earth when I lost my way. She cried at my success. She held me through my failures.

She fought for me. She let me hold her when she was weak. She showed me her weakness. She became my strength.

She’s my ‘Marmee’. And I couldn’t have asked for any better!

Some days, I miss you here. Other days, I write about you! 😉 Love you, Mom!

Graciously Yours!

Sea.

Guide to reading : Below are, not one but, three completely unrelated short stories all bound by the one word ~ “Sea”.

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He walked towards the seas. Stretched far across till where his eyes could see, only blues greeted him, shimmering in different shades from azure to teal to royal blue with hints of cyan and turquoise pitching in! This was the quieter part of the beach. Not many residents came here. And tourists? Barely. He dropped the bag and slowly moved to the edge of the rocks. As he looked down at the lapping waves twenty feet below, a rush of excitement passed through him. Goosebumps lined up his arms. He took in a lot of air, breathing deep. It would be a while before he did that again. “Whenever you’re ready,” he heard someone shout. He looked across to the adjacent cliff. Nodding, ever so slightly, he gave the clique of photographers a thumbs up and then spreading his arms like those of an eagle’s, he swooped down on the water, cold air rushing past him and all of reality a mere joke in that moment of truth!

“Mom, be careful. The baby might get hurt,” my daughter warned me, as soon as I set the toddler on the sand. I smiled at her, nostalgia hitting me in my guts! Twenty years ago, my little girl was perched in my lap eating her way through sand more than playing with it. She ran across the sands, collecting shells, screaming with delight at wriggling snails. Crabs scared her. Starfish made her curious. Corals were her collectibles. I still had some kept in one of my boxes. I scooped up the kid in my arms. “Are you stronger than your mother?” I asked him. But he was fiddling with a coral in his hand. He curiously stared at it and gurgled “Ma”, the best way he could, showing the coral to me and his mother turn by turn. “Oh well, let him out on the sand. He’ll be fine!” said my daughter, possibly reminiscing her own coral days! “But we’ll bathe him once after,” she said, as soon as I put the kid on the beach where I had raised my family and my husband’s mother had raised hers and so on. We were the sea and sand people. You couldn’t take the salts of the seas out of our blood.

He needed to talk to someone. His brain was a flurry of thoughts. Everything was going wrong. He was screwing up whatever was left in his life after having lost all that he once had. He got out of his car. He closed the door lightly. His girlfriend’s banging of the car door still reverberated in his ears. Walking along the beach, he saw a girl sitting alone. Hoping it would not be a mistake, he went up to her and asked politely, “Do you mind if I sit here?” She looked up at him. Her tear streaked cheeks glistened in the soft lights. “It’s a free country,” she said, resignedly. He sat down beside her. He cupped up the sand and watched it flow out of his hands, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I don’t want us to be running out of time,” he said out loud to his girlfriend. “And if you go away, this is all I’ll ever be,” showing her his now empty hands. “You cannot love me so much. You should not,” she said, putting her hand in his. “The sands of time will take care of us. Just let them,” he pleaded. She sighed, didn’t say anything, but let her hand stay right where it belonged.

Graciously Yours!

Picture Courtesy : Devesh Lunia.

Of music and runs!

So there’s a music run in my city today and I’m all geared up to go for it! Why, eh? Because I love music. And I try keeping fit, or at least that’s what I tell myself!

Considering I’ve not run more than once in the past month or not done more than 25 pushups in as many days, it’s easy to comprehend the disappointing state of affairs.

But who cares? I’ll still go for the music run. In fact, I’m going for it while typing this out.

Now just because I didn’t run in the run-up to the run (see what I did there!) does not mean I am not excited about it! I am.

I decided to go for a jog every day in the last week. Did I though? Well, mail me and I’ll let you know. I swear my reasons are genuine!

I ordered myself a new set of track pants for the event. They arrived today after I left for the run!

I also ordered a pair of new running shoes. The order got cancelled. How is that my fault? I reordered. They should be here next week!

The chocolates we were supposed to eat before and during the run have been gobbled up already! Well, Bangalore traffic gives me hunger pangs. And engulfs me with sleep. Hence, the blogging.

Wish me luck! Hoping my emergency contact won’t have to be invoked! D, you know what you gotta do if that happens!

Graciously Yours!

Isra, I wish someday I can run like you! Until then I’d appreciate help getting off the couch from any runners we have in the WP family. Or any closet runners too! Wait. Closet runners? Who might these be? Oh they’re runners who don’t ‘come out'(to run)! 😉

The Hope?

Contd from…

He sent his father away for breakfast. It was ticking 10 AM. She would be coming over any time to the shop now. And there she was, clad in a sari, hiding all possible parts with the six yards of cloth. She had a beautiful body, one she should have been flaunting had it not been marred with red, blue, purple and brown. Her eyes showed what the clothes hid.

His eyes lit up and smile broadened whenever he saw her. And when she looked at him and smiled, his wings fluttered to fly! She handed him a list of groceries required. Their hands touched. Neither pulled away. They both knew they wanted it. It was her console and his concern.

“How are you today?” he asked, while slowly picking out items from the shelves. There was no hurry. There never was.

“Same as yesterday. Same as every day. Existing.”

She was morose today. Anyone in her shoes would be.

“You’ll start living soon.”

“Will I now?”

“Yes,” he said with a conviction she admired in him. He was the reason she had more purple than red.

“He touches you again and it’ll be all over, okay?” he asked her, handing her the packet.

He took the money she gave him and put it aside in a drawer his father knew nothing about.

“I’ll give him a week at the most. He’s a rotten fellow.”

“A week it is then,” he said, looking at her. Her sad smile spiked a pain in his chest. He knew she wasn’t an infatuation. And he let her know. Every damn day.

“I love you,” he said, his parting words.

“I do, too,” she said softly, her day already feeling better and brighter.

He watched her walk away. She was married. She was elder to him. Theirs was a match the society would frown upon.

But he had taken to her like salt to sea. He was her only hope and she his beacon of light. Together they would alight the horizon.

Graciously Yours!

The Love?

Contd from “The Ideal?”…

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He re-read the letter again in the dimness of the street light streaming in through the window. There was no mention of what really was going on at their place. He liked it that way. Folding the letter inside the envelope, he put it back in the diary where it belonged. He treaded lightly towards the cupboard and kept the diary on top of it. Looking at the woman sleeping on his bed, face towards him, the light unable to flit across her face, he smiled at her lovingly. He rubbed the gashes on the knuckles of his left hand. The gashes were so old, he now referred to them as birth marks. They were signs of his father’s love.

The naive woman thought he didn’t know she wrote to her mother. He loved her for how she covered for him. She really did love him. Was that how his mother was too? Nah, she was better. She never fought back, never talked back. She was always the loving mother, dutiful wife. She didn’t even show her tears to his father ever. His wife had a lot to learn. But she would – with time. He was sure. Maybe it was time for a lesson soon.

He loved his wife a lot. The marks on her body showed that bright and loud. That was the only love he knew. That was the only love he’d ever known.

To be contd…

Graciously Yours!

Picture Courtesy : Pinterest.

The Ideal?

Her eyes teared up as she wrote another long, lying letter to her mother. A letter which would give away nothing of what was happening to her, which killed her bit by bit from guilt every time she thought of her mother.

Her mother had always been her best friend. She still was. But this time she couldn’t share her happiness with her mother. Or her pain. She looked at herself in the mirror across the bed. She saw her blurred self lying on the bed, papers piled up neatly on a hard bound dictionary. She covered her bosom with her saree. The red marks around her neck didn’t need a mirror as a reminder.

She was in love. With a man not her husband. She was in pain. With a man her husband.

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To be contd…

Graciously Yours!

Picture Courtesy : Pinterest.

The Pixel Way.

Four days ago, I was awkward, silent and judgmentally observant. Four days later, I am lively, chirpy and still observant but not judgmentally! Oh and 104% tired!

What happened in these four days, you ask? PIXELS ~ the photography club at the company I work in. They organised a three day trip to Kodaikanal, Madurai and Rameshwaram and those three days have by far been the best in the last couple of months! Except the family reunion, of course! Jeez Mom, don’t doubt my love for you fellas! 😉

Waking up to such scenes may be difficult but when you have friends to capture them for you, there’s nothing better! 😉 Kodaikanal at 13 degrees Celsius in the morning is the best way to wake up to! Until you realize that the geyser in the bathrooms doesn’t necessarily spout hot water.

VIBGYOR and beyond! P.C.: Nishant Aggarwal

Clicking the clickers. P.C.: Deepanshu Tiwari.

Sightseeing had never been this interesting! With so many cameras clicking around me, for once I didn’t have to bother about capturing places. I only had to live through moments in the best way possible.

Sometimes you meet the most unexpected people in the most unexpected places. Period.

Note the logo. Says the Professional, captures the Amateur. (Hint – Baskin Robbins!)

The names of the restaurants, schools, colleges we came across were hilarious! Apart from these, a few that stood out were Booty’s. And the *drum roll begins* ‘American University of India’.

Yeah, visiting date and time at the temple noted. #VandalismMuch

From temples to beaches, parks to caves, waterfalls to forests – we covered it all. And the one most obvious thing which I couldn’t manage to squeeze in? Shopping! Such a relief, I tell you 😉

The Flowing Light. P.C. : Janakiraman G.

And that right there is how each of these talented photographers’ create magic! The Pamban bridge connecting Rameshwaram island to the Indian mainland is one of those marvelous pieces of architecture that we’re forgetting about.

Three days of fun has never been called long and short in the same sentence! Until now. To each of those who came together for this trip ~ thank you for making the heat, the hunger, the pain, the sleeplessness and the wait at the temples all bearable! 😉

Graciously Yours!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!

Spread the word!