Maybe it’s love

Tags

doubt, faith, love, Poetry, quote, Relationships, Romance, teenage

“I wandered around and finally found someone who could make me be true.
I’ll even be glad, just to be sad while thinking of you.”

- Scribbled on the last page of a notepad by a 16 year old girl who believed whole heartedly and passionately that she was truly, madly and deeply besotted in love. Today she’s 20 and still believes whole heartedly and passionately that she is truly, madly and deeply besotted in love. Maybe she’s a fool, maybe she’s a dreamer and maybe there’s a rude shock in store for her somewhere in the future. But maybe, just maybe, she was right all along. Maybe dreams do come true. Maybe it really is love. Maybe all you need is faith.

On being a Bong :p

Tags

bengal, bengali, Bong, childhood, culture, india, list, puja, Rabindranath Tagore, reflections, West Bengal

Things people should not assume about me simply because “oh, im a bengali!” -

1.I do NOT.. i repeat, DO NOT.. like fish and rice irrespective of the fact that that happens to be the staple diet of my ancestors. Sorry but I’ve discovered butter chicken and naan which tastes a TAD bit better don’t you think??!

2. I do not know how to sing/ dance/ paint/ etc. although I would gladly demonstrate if you do not wish to believe me.

3. No, sadly I am not related to any one of the huge brigade of bong actresses that populate bollywood so quit asking.

4. No, I do not want any “roshogollas” and since I don’t see you carrying around a tin full of them anyway I advise you to stop asking me and breaking my heart cos I actually happen to love those sweets!

5. I will not be impressed if a random stranger comes up to me and says “aami tomake bhalo bashi” (I love you), so just stop! It sounds fancy to you but it really isn’t to us and gets kinda irritating after a while and makes me want to sue you for “roadside romeo” type of harassment. So if you really wish to sound knowledgeable- learn some new phrases please.

6. I do NOT know why we don’t have a bengali word for “drink” and I honestly don’t care. That does not mean we give you the liberty to ask us why we “eat our milk”. That joke lost its charm 200 years ago so I suggest you learn some new punchlines as well.

7. Please do not try to compliment me by saying that I have typical bengali looks. We all wish to be unique and telling me I look just like a million others is a slight bit offensive.

8. Yes, we love our books but that does not mean that we carry one to every social event does it? and neither do we break out in verse at the mere sight of nature. With all due respect to Tagore- you really made our life hell didn’t you?!

9. My big eyes are a gift from God and my Beautiful mum/grandmom/aunt. There’s no pool of these available for sale only to people with the bengali passport (if that even exists!) Love the compliments but hate the following, ‘oh you’re a Bengali, no wonder!’

10. I know we have way too many bandhs (curfews) but it’s just one empty-headed politician responsible for them. Does NOT make the whole clan of us lazy and irresponsible. (I agree I may have symptoms of both but that’s just me I don’t see anyone putting Tagore and SC Bose in this category!) Laziness has nothing to do with caste/color/creed/ethnicity; I personally blame technology

I can’t think of more but I’ll keep adding as and when I meet someone who starts his conversation with, “Oh ur a bengali!! then you must…”

“Quotation”

Tags

God, inspiration, life, love, Poetry, quotes

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Dear God,

Please enable me to imbibe such lovely thoughts in my mind and ensure that it stays there for a good while; at least until I come across another amazing teaching such as this one. I tend to admire great thoughts but forget to apply them in real life.

Thank you.

Amen.

Outlet for extra thoughts.

Tags

blogs, college, emotions, india, life, musings, thoughts

I just happened to ‘bump into’ my wordpress page this morning, en route to my Facebook, and realized that I haven’t really gotten around to posting anything in over a month.  I can’t imagine why that may be so. It’s not because I don’t have enough thoughts, because I do! Definitely way too many of them to constrain within the small framework of my mind. Yet, I never put them down on paper… err …electronic print.

It’s not because I have a mundane life and have had nothing remotely interesting enough to write about. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth! I just recently shifted back to college after a three-month long break back home in India, and my emotions have been shooting back and forth ever since, touching dire extremities within a span of mere moments. Just now for instance, I woke up from a beautiful dream feeling happy, secure and content with myself and thanked God for blessing my life with a bunch of amazing people. Then I reached under my pillow for my precious iphone so I could check my mail and discovered one from a Professor stating something was wrong with my schedule and I was required to do a million things to rectify it before I was allowed to take his class. On reading this the emotional meter just made this drastic fall from super happy to super frustrated, mad and rationally upset since I had specially made room on my calendar for this course. Anyway, I vented for quite a while and then moved my attention to another mail, this time from my Dad, who had written a poem expressing his relationship with his daughter (AKA me) and once again, the emotional meter made a 180º turn from super bugged to dramatically nostalgic and homesick. Oh, how I miss home right now! *sigh* It’s at times like these that I sincerely wish I could be like Ronald Weasley and average the “emotional range of a teaspoon” as Hermione puts it.

I guess I still haven’t figured out why it took me so long to update my blog but it feels nice to have these particular musings written down here right in front of me. It enables me to go back to them at leisure and ponder over each individually without having to fight my way through the clutter of extra thoughts that usually inhabit my mind at any given time of the day. Maybe that’s why people rely on blogs so much. It’s kind of like an external hard disk for your thoughts.

Just another Love Note…

Tags

anniversary, distance, letter, life, love, nostalgia, relationship, Romance, thoughts, unconditional love

It’s been 3 years since that day we finally acknowledged to each other, and to ourselves, that this relationship wasn’t just restricted to friendship. We’ve been each others everything and in fits of anger we’ve also tried convincing ourselves that we mean nothing, but I guess by now we’ve both accepted the fact that even though it won’t always be easy, will almost never be fair, it may not always be everything we wanted, it’s definitely nothing we ever expected but somehow, for some reason it’s still something very special; something worth holding on to. You were right baby, we don’t need a name for it; we can just live blissfully with the fact that it is … and we have … and we are…

Smell of Rain

Tags

adults, change, childhood, growing up, life, life lessons, love, Memory, nostalgia, rain

Image via Wikipedia

“It’s the simple things in life which make it worth living; it’s the simple things which make any memory worth remembering.”

While walking silently down an unfamiliar gravel road in a foreign country you are suddenly blessed with a whiff of the comforting fragrance of wet earth, bringing along with it the promise of onsetting rain. The familiar scent plays the role of a time turner and you find yourself reminiscing about that moment when, back home as a kid, you smelt the same sweet fragrance, heard a distant roar of thunder and you spread out your hands and looked up at the sky, eagerly awaiting the first drop of rain which kisses your face and assures you that monsoons are finally here to stay.

Those carefree childhood days spent idling with friends on those beatified rainy afternoons, after school was out, splashing gleefully in tiny mud puddles unheeding to any parental reprimanding whatsoever. Oh, the joys of waking up in the mornings to a dark horizon and water-logged streets, realizing that school will be closed and rushing out to float those crude, handmade paper boats in the little rivulets that form by the sidewalks, unaware albeit apathetic to the angry glares coming from the adults stuck in morning traffic. In your minds eye you can see the sullen faces of office-goers cooking up excuses to dish out to their bosses to cover up their tardiness, the grumpy investment bankers cursing the rain-gods for the unprecedented delay in todays money-making plans, dark-eyed doctors heading out to cover another 48-hour shift with minimal rest, maybe a politician or two frantically crunching numbers on their cellphones trying to get in touch with established “contacts” in order to be immediately transported out of the water-bogged traffic without having to wait it out like the common man.

You suddenly stop walking as you find yourself focussing on those people in your memory. How did you manage to become one of those adults, fretting over menial matters? Where did the carefree days of kite flying and paper boats disappear? Why didn’t you halt and enjoy them while they lasted? Why were you always in a hurry to grow up and be the adult? It’s true that the grass is always green on the other side. As children we’re all in a hurry to become the adult, to give the orders and watch them being carried out by young ‘uns such as ourselves; finally being the boss of us and others as well. In the rush towards adulthood we forget to truly enjoy and cherish the joys which come with childhood- those carefree days, which we later learn, can never be redeemed.

Stop walking for a while and take in your surroundings, relish in the moment while time stands still for you and truly live in the present. Memories are sweeter when you know you’ve lived them fully and wholeheartedly, enjoying every moment of the past, then present. To create a revered memory worth remembering in the future learn to revel in the present with largesse while being thankful of the past which is now tucked away fondly only to be revoked on another monsoon day when the reminiscent, comforting smell of rain transports you to another time and place.

The Deception.

Tags

deception, goals, life, oscar wilde

“The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived”, said Oscar Wilde and indeed he quite hit the nail on the head. The world is a formidable place and an individual is but a pawn in the bigger picture. It’s strange how Life, the one thing that truly and wholly belongs to us is the one we have such little command over and rarely any say in. It’s true we make decisions, chalk out plans and goals and list out paths to achieve the same but the reigns to steer our Lives in that direction are never really handed over to us. All we can do is strategize and pray to Heavens that there’s no rude shock awaiting us round the corner. Never make the fatal mistake of demeaning Life- you won’t even realize what hit you when you fall. Life is not an ally and definitely not your minion; Life is not entirely relentless nor wholeheartedly rewarding; Life does not forgive foolishness and rarely grants second chances. Life is holding the reigns and it’s you who’s being steered. For good or for bad, better or for worse.

This journey called Life

Tags

change, growing up, life, love, motivation

When we were kids our guardians- parents, teachers, elder siblings, grandparents- tried their best to shield us from the harshness of reality. The pain of love and loss is carefully cushioned by the illusion of happy endings and “The One” who we’re supposed to find in order to live the “perfect life”. Stories of the victory of good over evil and fairy tales about guardian angels and godmothers were told to us at night before dad kissed you goodnight and tucked you into bed and left the room; but only after switching on the blue pixie night lamp “to scare the ghosts away at night”. Sadly, we all grow up. We realize that promises made are futile since they’re inevitably broken at some time or the other. All of us, at some point in time end up doing the exact same things which we had once vowed on a loved ones head to never be a part of. We hypocritically talk about the things other people do yet somehow manage to find dozens of justifiable excuses when faced with the same situation ourselves. We fall in love, get hurt, manage to move on with life and then do it all over again. We hurt the ones we love the most and find solace at a strangers doorstep when we’re hurt ourselves. Friends become strangers while enemies become forever entwined in our life stories due to circumstances which ironically caused a rift in the first place.We fall at the peak of our happiness and rise just before we hit the floor. There are days when you feel like the happiest person on earth and then suddenly in a matter of seconds the feeling’s gone and your world comes crashing down around you and all you’re left with are the memories of a happier time and longing for that childhood feeling of false security- a happy ending. . Life is a cynical journey which we are forced to partake. The trick is to keep walking ahead, refusing to stop and never looking back at the miles we’ve covered. Maybe the stories are true after all. At the end of the journey, it doesn’t really matter how you made it. The point is- you just did. And so it ends.. “happily ever after”