Can I overpower Love?

Thoughts put into words which pop into mind only after midnight. It’s a virtual dialect among abstract entities which incidentally happen to determine the human virtues.

Oh yes, surely I can. I am tired of answering this again & again to each one of you people. But then, I love this part of life when you stupid creatures fight with yourselves and think of winning, knowing well enough that it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you are the one who has to loose, something at least. Just in case you are thinking of loosing me, allow me to make you realize my importance to you:

You say you cherish love. But I have taught you how to cherish things. I am the first thought you cherished.

You say you can die for your love. Have you ever thought who you live for? Its me darling. You have lived each moment of your life to fulfill me.

You say your love is the single most important thing that happened to you in your entire life. Tell me, isn’t your being in love is just a miniscule subset of me. I, as a whole, am much more important than your stupid love & things like that.

You say you have grown so much accustomed to your love that it has turned out to be a habit for you. Think about me dear. I have been controlling your thoughts since you started thinking. Its me and only me you are accustomed to.

You can you spend all your nights dreaming about your love. Yes, that’s what I wanted to emphasize on. Love needs me. You need me.

Who am I? I am your DREAM and I do what I want. I control you and will continue to do so. Ain’t I powerful?

I am a sink … aren’t I?

It was a fine evening, 4th of May 1990 and I was about to leave for the playground, quite close to my house. Playing sport has always been my greatest interest I ever had in my life. I got dressed, fully and professionally in the football jersey and spikes given by our club. After all, I was a treasured player there and I could not afford to miss a single day of my contribution to the team. All of a sudden, I heard my mom calling. She was exceptionally polite to me and I somehow knew she must be asking for some compromise on my end. Anyways, she proceeded to state that my father got something else to do, which was ofcourse more important than my match and hence am expected to be take up his responsibilities for some time. Its only a matter of an hour or so before my father takes over and then I will be free to play as much as I wished. I looked blindly into her eyes, kind of avoiding the direct contact so that she doesn't get to know about my already bubbling eyes.

Of course, it was only a matter of an hour but by then I would have lost many a things, which were more important to me than anything. I would have lost the time, the match would have started, someone else will take up my place, my credibility in the team diminishes. I spoke nothing. I could not speak a word but wonder, how could she ask me such a thing? I wanted to shout and scream. I wanted to get heard.

But I didn't complain. Went straight to my playground. I knew a place where I could hide with no one in direct sight of me. I had discovered that while playing hide and seek with the same set of friends. I went there and cried. I cried till my eyes were sore red and there were no more watery lakes flowing down my cheeks. And then I went to perform the duty I was asked, with all the dignity of a martyr.

That was the day when I started learning how not to complain, how not to get heard and how to listen to others. I learned how to mould my life to other's needs and try to solve their problems. I learned to compromise things which mattered the most to me. Time flew by, and I got so accustomed to it that I started enjoying it. I started loving the pain which erupted in my heart whenever I was not listened to. I cherished the moments when I sacrificed something to earn a small happiness to somebody else.

World doesn't allow you to live peacefully, no matter how hard you try. Now it asks me to open up, to share things and let others know about my feelings. I ask you .... Why now? Believe me, change is not at all easy. Habits may change, but what about characteristics? That is the way I have spent all my life, and if you want me to be what you demand, you got to invest time. You got to make me comfortable and let me know that "Its ok to share feelings".

Independence: A Mirage

Independence in Life is similar to Mirage in a Desert. We keep on moving to reach a state of independence, and we rarely succeed.

Flashback

Scene 1: It was a tradition in the society that the school-going kids would celebrate Saraswati Puja and ask the Goddess of Knowledge for more wisdom every year, year after year. Not sure whether SHE listened to us, we followed it religiously. We got the biggest idol that our miniscule budget permitted us to and tried to re-arrange it at the centre of the stage. Unable to do so all by ourselves, I called on my father who was deeply engulfed (deeper than I thought) in the post-analysis of the Babri Masjid massacre. He didn't move; neither was I able to make any of them move (father or the Goddess). I didn't realize it then, but I was Physically Dependent.

Scene 2: I inquired my mom if I could throw a party to all my friends on my next birthday. I was made to wait for an affirmation for days & months thereafter, till the D-Day arrived. Yes, I was stupid enough to ask it half an year in advance. Ultimately, as it turned out, reasons like money constraints were tossed to me. A couple of years smarter, I demystified it this time: I was Financially Dependent.

Scene 3: Our team had lost the football match and it was largely because of me. I had the burden on my shoulders of letting my team down. Yes, I was stupid enough to think that it was the most important thing I had lost in life, but as I look back, it was important to me at that point of time. Of course, I have had lost many a things since then, but coming back to the day: Absorbing the tears that cringed in my eyes, I went home and saw my elder sister engrossed in a social science project from her school. I asked her if she could spend some time with me. You guessed it right. I was Emotionally Dependent.

Present

In the quest to be a complete man, I made a conscious effort to eliminate all these dependencies. I wanted to be independent. Independence, as I defined it to myself, was like a perfect system, capable of surviving on its own. It doesn't need an ecosystem; it doesn't need external inputs to breathe. I don't know after all these years whether I should claim myself to be successful or not, but the matter of fact is that the dependencies are still there, they have only changed faces.

And now with all this self-claimed wisdom I acquired from the prayers since childhood, I can see through the simplest thought of GOD behind making humans dependent on each other. HE wanted to make the world a relatively harmonious place to live in, lest the humans become invincible and self-sustaining. At least, HE blessed each one of us with independent thinking.

Let's celebrate OUR Independence!!

My Pune experience :))

Prologue: Went to Pune some time back.

It was so very refreshing. Every thing, every object, living & non-living, that could be green, was Green. And the water droplets fell on the Mumbai-pune expressway as if they are enjoying their leisurely fall from heaven onto the greens of earth. They seemed to have a mission; lessening the burdens from the shoulders of humanity and alleviating their thoughts. I gaped at the lush green beauty, as the water droplets washed the glasses of the Tavera and tried to seep in from the window panes at times.

It made me feel elated and enthusiastic while relishing the hundreds of river-born waterfalls, small yet cute pink colored houses surrounded by fences and the cows grazing here and there. Thanks to the terrific works from the likes of William Wordsworth and John Keats, I think every Indian student grows up with exactly that kind of a farm-house picture in his mind: tiled, brown, tiny & insignificant dwelling, surrounded by a fence and a single cow tied to a rope grazing at some end.

At times, the green hurt the eyes. It seemed like the nature was struck with a pestilential disease of green. It occupied every possible space, spread across acres and acres. Except some of the steel rods, railway tracks, a few newly built houses and the sky; the vines and the green algae seemed to have conspired not to leave anything untouched. And they succeeded exceptionally well.

Involuntarily, I was thrown back into a flash of the sweetest memoirs I ever had in my life. And my heart knew next time the same crate opens up in my mind, the reminiscence of this journey would be there.