Valentine forever...

He wrote his name on a piece of paper that lay besides the old Linux machine in the Computer lab that he was using to jot down a rough draft of his proof for the Math question. She read it, pronounced it very slowly. She looked at him after finishing, and he had a disappointed look in his eyes at the same time as he was nodding his head as if to say "Yea!".
"Oh! I guess I got it all wrong! I am sorry. How is this pronounced?"
"No ... it's okay ... It's just that ..."
"No what is it?"

How in the world could I have guessed that the letters "ll" together could ever be pronounced like "kh" and not "ll", she thought.

Oh she actually cares, he smiled sheepishly as he thought.

What she didn't think was that he would take her gesture to be really thoughtful, and what he didn't think was that was just her nature ...

That was the first meeting of these two vividly opposite individuals - Him being not-so-quiet not-so-intelligent-but-hard-working short-statured guy and her being the smarter, taller, shyer kinds. He was from England - the part where "ll" is read as "kh", and she was from America, where "ll" written is taught as "ll". Regardless of these minute differences, the Math course provided the medium for them to interact, for her to teach him stuff that she felt so at home with, and for him to pretend that he didn't know stuff so he could spend some more time with her - her continuously talking and him, well, disappearing into his magical world, sheltered by the cocoon of her words. He was well aware of the state of ecstasy that he was in when he was with her, and the intolerable pain of the time he wasn't. He was in a fix as to whether he should tell her about those inexplicable feelings? Was she in the same boat as him? After all, she cared how she pronounced his name; she put effort teaching him the Taylor's series and the Chi Square test; she made him not miss home as much as he would have otherwise.

It is weird how a human being - one single entity - holds two different opinions about one thing at the exact same time. He was going back to Wales at the end of this semester regardless of whether he told her or not, and regardless of whether she accepted his proposal or not. He did not want to miss the one chance of asking her to be with him for their entire life.Given the assumption that she accepted him as her life partner, would he move to US or would she move to Wales with him? After much debating, when being with her and controlling his emotions was proving to be no less agonizing than the desire of possessing her, he decided to throw the ball in her court, and let her take control of it.

It was almost the end of the term, and he had about a month before he was leaving for Wales. She was heading towards the library after the class ended at 4:00 p.m. He invited her for a coffee. December approaching, there was a warm kind of chill in the wind. She was blabbering about how the Vietnamese Math TA of her section was a meretricious guy when she noticed him unexceptionally quiet and thoughtful. She calmed down, and waited patiently for him to talk.

"I am going back on 20th December."
"Hmm. All set?"
"Uh. Umm."
Her eyes did the questioning for her this time. What is it?
Gravely came the reply, "Will you be my Valentine forever?"
She went blank for the longest two seconds of her life. How? Why? Now? I mean, isn't he going away for what's called forever? Was I supposed to tell him?
His voice cut through the voice of her mind. "You do not have to answer this. It's okay.I have been thinking about you for a while now, and the feeling of being so much in love has forced me to walk upto you and ask this question. I do not even know that if you choose to say yes, what vision should I hold of our future. It's just that I felt like asking you and ..."
"May be I ought to have told you, or I thought I did tell you - I am sorry if I didn't, I am married."

Halka Halka Suroor ...

Song of the moment: Ye Jo Halka Halka Suroor Hai (Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan).

I've always found this one singer absolutely amazing. And now I find him convincing. I realized the amount of liveliness he brings to love. The love's worth the pain, he tells me.

This sensational Qawwali of 23 minutes and 4 seconds is one of his many wonders and one of my many favourites. I am sure he'd not fail you if you chose to listen to this one.

tera naam loon zuban se, tere aage sar jhukaoon,
mera ishq keh raha hai, main tujhe khuda bana doon

(I speak thy name, I bow my head in front of thee,
my love's advising me to make thee my Lord)

And what's even further fantastic is that majorly the additional ingredients he uses to prepare the "soulful" music are the Tabla and Harmonium, and ofcourse, the wonderful, wonderful raagas... I cannot just stop tapping the table or anything at hand when I listen to him.

tera naam mere lab par, mera tazkara hai dar dar
mujhe bhool jaye duniya, mai agar tujhe bhula doon

(Your name's on my lips, every door thus, has my mention
Let the world forget me, if I choose to forget you)

This Qawwali ends rather beautifully, as Nusrat ji goes on to highlight (I guess) that love doesn't really have a happy ending...

... Mei kehta reh gaya khata-e-mohabbat ki achi saza di
Meri dil ki duniya bana kar mita di

(I kept saying that you've given me a good punishment for committing the mistake of loving,
You made my heart's world and shattered it as well ...)

Sheer amazing beauty. I wish I had a chance to go to this man's live concert...

Mood of the Moment: Romantic

Ifs and buts

The easy conditions. The easier blames. Sometimes just, sometimes just the easiest ways out. Make what you want of it - It's my life...I got my problems

Each one of us learns the language of ifs and buts - and pretty fast. And I just love the if else loops in programming so much. In conjunction with the if loops walks a conditional life of ours.

"If you do not drink milk for the first 16 years of your life, chances are you might not be as healthy."
"I drank milk for 20 years of my life but uncontrolled amount of oil caused heart attacks".
Did you notice the condition in the first sentence? An incomplete if else statement that is. Most of our life's conditions are deficient... They're buggy!
And the second sentence, an effortless blame... I did what I was told to! The requirements were not clear!
*Yo techie ppl, identify with me?*

How very very easy it is to discredit someone with the use of the tiny, tiny word if. If Mr X had done a certain something, we would definitely be out of this mess. The sayer might as well be doing the same thing consciously had he been in Mr. X's shoes.
*shrugs* Regardless, I am not in Mr. X's shoes.

And how can I forget relationships when talking about conditions. True that something called "unconditional love" is more of a dying myth on our planet now. (On second thoughts, did it ever exist???) But conditions have to be just and justifiable as well. How many of us will be forced to refer and revisit their relationships - past or preset - just by the mere mention of conditions in relationships being mentioned here? I've revisited my connections, but I wasn't the one at fault!

Oh well, who cares!
If only I worried about what I wrote, I wouldn't write what I've written!

Parting and Meeting

I wish I had a way with partings. I was never good with them. It doesn't matter I leave people and places or people leave me... it's just the same. Even people who are least important matter only during the parting time. I've parted physically as well as emotionally with tons and tons of people in the past some time. Surprisingly, I am not used to them even now. There's a favourite quotation: To meet and part is the way of life, to part and meet again is the hope of life.
For some, I have no regrets but happiness, for others I have no regrets but sadness prevails, and yet there are those others that dooms me to the highest level of regrets and sadness.

Anyway, with experiments comes learning, and with learning comes experience - if that makes any sense at all. With time comes the need to write all that you know, all that is there to say.

But somehow, there are times that do not allow you to say whatever you want to. There are things, that for your best, should be left unsaid. What and when is up to you to decide. I hereby decide to not to say something at this point of time. I choose, however, to say that I miss a lot of people. I miss the lovely warm moments that I have spent with a lot of people. I miss...

Can I choose to say that my voice trailed off at this point of time?

Trip to Central Island

This was the place we were at over the last weekend. Centreville Island. There's a ferry that takes you down to the island from Toronto. It was thankfully a bright warm and sunny day. There's an amusement park on the island, tons of picnic spots. And yea, beaches on the meeting place of land and water.



A view of the Toronto City from amid the lovely island. The CN tower really stands out from everything else that constitutes Toronto.


Now, now, can you get a better picture than this? This was from the ferry on the way back to Toronto.



A view of the amazing beach on the island. The water was comfortably cold and the sand comfortingly warm. It was perfect.

Updates

Monday, 2nd June 2008
12:00 a.m.

Long time!! I was out of a working laptop for almost a week now. And not to mention, was busy with guests as well. Have been having a blast over the weekends for some time now. Visiting just about anywhere and everywhere. But this past weekend was uneventful and quiet. No outings and really no where to go. Had to catch up with tons of chores to be done at home :) but i haven't accomplished much.

Have been reading Curious Lives by Richard Bach. Very cute. Also just started on "A Suitable Boy" by the renowned Vikram Seth.

By the way, there's something missing. It had been there. Always.

Song of the moment: Kyun chhod gaye raste, kabhi saath chale the jinpe - Atif Aslam