Expression...

Not until lately have I understood the importance of expressing. It is important to express your confidence and knowledge in an interview. It is equally important to tell someone you love how much you love them. Actions speak as well, and words do so too. Don't be like the Suri Jee of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and assume that your Taani ji would know how much you love her. On a side note I think it would have been perfectly fair for Taani if she chose to go away with her Raj partner. Telling and doing something for someone you love makes them feel really special. It's an on-top-of-the-world feeling, and I don't think that there is a reason why the feeling shouldn't be conferred upon the one you love...
I don't mean I have to be told everytime that I am being loved... it's easy to see when there's something to see...
There's a peculiar kind of satisfaction that one gets by doing something for someone they love. I am writing on this topic after a long time I think... too early? too late? should i? should i not? oh well! life's a weird mystery isn't it? and love takes the top spot in the list..

The Month of Love

The year just started and February is already here - the month that contains the day meant to celebrate love. Why is 2009 running so fast? Time is so dangerously relative... 2009 is the year that I think should stay on forever!

I realized sometime last year around this time, Valentine's day is just another day for people in love. Yes, they do something special that day, but they feel special throughout the year. Valentine's day leaves more of a negative impact and longing in the people who are love-deprived, even more for the people who have tasted the wine of love at some point down the memory lane... It's meant to make you feel the absence of love rather than the presence of love is my whole point. But anyway, apart from a sadist kind of a note there, I like the special "things" that people do or look forward for doing on that day. I like the planning process that leads to making that one day in the year extremely special. I especially like to see people all dressed up but covered by their winter jackets, and carrying a stem or a bouquet of brightly fresh red roses in their hands - either they received it, or are going to give it to their loved ones. I love it how businesses attempt to sell anything and everything on the pretext of Valentine's day. I love it absolutely how there are mushy mushy soft-toys, shops decorated in the colors of red and love. I love it how people's first Valentine's holds so much attention and excitement. I love it how that one day actually has love in the air in the very literal sense of the phrase.

Happy Valentine's Day people. May you be loved truly, sincerely and purely always... Love is a blessing, never take it for granted. You are special because you are loved. And yes, thanks for being there for me :). You all know who you are, and you all know how special you are to me. Lots and lots and lots of love :)

Love me, love me not?

Love me, love me not?
I am but mind with a fear besought...

Love me, love me not?
I am but a heart that's distraught...

Love me, love me not?
I am but a gently fading illusion...

Love me, love me not?
I am but the burnt wick of the torch...

Winter Sun

Spread the warmth in my life
The winter sun.
Smile, for that blesses me
Smile, for I need to smile too.

Come, let's walk together
Come, take me, take me away
To a land where
Sunshine is the only way

Missed you have been, winter sun
For the icy pathways of life
And the chilly winds alone
Have had me numbly frozen

The Echo

Song of the moment: Shaam se aankh mein nami si hai

It was like the dust was scratched off the top of the trunk of memories to reveal the lock; it all came back like the dark cloud from the Pandora's box. It's been a year. One goddamn year, can you believe it. It is strange how everything including the pain comes alive the moment you start talking about something. And it wasn't passive this time. As well. I am so amazed at myself for being yet so under the influence. 

And apart from the opening of the memory box, I am getting to hear extremely familiar phrases: 

"...kitni vehli ho"

"...sharam naam ki toh koi cheez hi nahi hai"

"...nakhre hi bahut hain"

Do you know what that means? I haven't changed! I am partly happy about it, but partly sad as well... I do not want to be me anymore... I want the me to disappear behind a smiling face forever to not to be able to be reminded myself about me... 

Song of this moment: Maine dil se kaha dhoond laana khushi... 

Zindagi (Life)

Kal ki hi sab baat lagti hai jab
Zindagi thi, mai zinda tha tab

Kisi ki muskurahaton se hi
Zindagi thi, mai muskurata tha tab

Kal hi tanhai mei yaad ayee jo, woh
Zindagi thi, mai aabaad tha tab

Woh saath-saath mei chalti hui
Zindagi thi, mai zinda tha tab

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all seems like yesterday when
Life existed, I was alive then

Someone's smile was the reason
Life existed, I used to smile then

Yesterday, the memory in the solitude
Was life, I used to be befriended then

What used to walk along with me
Was life, I was alive then

After effects

Everything in this world has after-effects. Think about the after-effects of anti-aging creams to nuclear bombs to pregnancy to love.

Let's leave the after effects of anti-aging creams, nuclear bombs and pregnancy for the more eligible class of scientists to explore and prove...

I am just going to take a plunge into the after effects of the non-scientific thing - love.

Pyaar ke Side-Effects toh dekhi hi hogi. So, besides that, well, the first serious after-effect of love is expectation. The world is witness to the fact that expectations in love are the basic cause for a majority of blunders in love.

The second serious after-effect of love is that the love-birds fail to keep track of their friends... Friends cease to exist - friends are no longer inhabitants of the lovers' superior planet.

The third serious after-effect of love is comparison. The comparison can be between times gone by, and the present; or between someone else's lover and your own.

And of course, there is the "heart-break" part of love. Govinda rightly said, "Oye Raju, pyaar na kariyo... dil toot jaata hai". People deal differently with heart-breaks. There are people, who WANT to cry for their entire life, and not think of the future, of their friends' and family's happiness... I use the word "want" because humans are made of a very strong and powerful material. They have the ability to choose what to do with themselves. They can either choose to drown in self-pity or can choose various ways to come out of situations. They can choose to forgive and forget, or remember and regret... Yes, sometimes we do not have a choice, but we pretty much know whether the choice is there for us to make or not. And as if to continue the train of thoughts forward, it appears that heart-breaks themselves have a history of after-effects. I am not willing to get to them at this point of time.

But remember, choose... Choose on the basis of reasons. It's like putting the fors and againsts on a beam balance and weighing them, and seeing which side of reasoning is heavier... Well, at least, that is how I do it. And I think it helps...

We, more often than not, have a choice.

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."