And If I Did Not Make Mistakes

And if I did not make mistakes
And give too brief a thought to heavy questions
And too much time to little matter;
Or if I always knew which road to travel
Where every step would lead me into daylight
And if each face that turned to watch me pass
Was broken by a smile;
Or if whenever I should choose to lay my heart
Bare upon the sun-warmed grass,
It always was returned with tender touches
And carried by a song;
And if my heaviest burden were only to be
A breeze upon my back, and blossom in my hair,
And my brow was never crossed with lines of pain;
If all this endless summer were my lot
And winter's fury never beat me back,
Then I never would have seen the stormy nights
Through which I've struggled, fought and won;
I never would have known the joy of needed comfort given,
Or the essence of a friend.

--- By Katie Paton, a scottish poet

The road...

As life takes another unexpected turn around the bend, I decide to sit by the side and just watch.

Through my weary eyes, I see people. They come and they go. Rushing, meeting deadlines, setting goals and attaining them….

They are told that the end justifies the means and so they run frantically towards the end.

They trample and run over the road in their hurry to see the end. They use the road for all their needs oblivious of its presence. Sometimes they fall and they curse the road. They blame the road for every folly of theirs without ceasing to imagine what the world would be like without that very road....

Weighed down as I was by my burdens, I sat down by the edges and watched the road as it stoically braved every footstep that walked over it…

Unacknowledged, uncared for and yet un-protesting….

It is bruised and grazed as people walked over it in their mad rush for the end… The forces of nature weather the road even as it continues to lead the way. Through night and day, through summer or fall, the road stood there, ready to help and ready to guide. To strangers and to friends, to seekers and to the revelers. It doesn’t protest.

Why ?

How does it stand being used like that ?

Is it just putting up with it because it cannot fight ?

Is it helpless and therefore accommodating or is it just a greater being ?

Is it gracious and benevolent, spreading its largesse or is it just another victim ?

Is it clinging on to the hope that somewhere deep down inside people probably will realize the importance of the road that led them….?

Does it care for the fame it gets as people spread the word about it ?

Is the road only fulfilling its destiny ?

Does it 'understand', somewhere deep down, that the means matter more than the end ?

Or perhaps, the road is just another traveler like you and me seeking the unknown ?

Why can't I be like the road ?

Why do I care who finds their way through me ? Why do I feel "used" when people form

relationships driven by nothing but need and convenience ? Why am I not able to disconnect from all but my journey… ? Why am I not able to live the thought that the "means is all there is"… Maybe the road does not complain because it 'knows' that the road is all there is - the means and the end. Maybe that is what I need to learn.

Tiny quirks !!

I believe in love. It may be hormonal and chemical and all that.. but hey, what is not ? We are alive due to these very hormones and chemical reactions and our life is no less questionable than love is…

So, I believe in love … but what kind of love ? Love at first sight … ??? Definitely not … I have somehow never felt that I could fall in love with someone at first sight … That’s for the movies and kids … not for grown ups like me.. :)

I hope to find love in the midst of everyday life, love with acceptance and tolerance… Love for what you are and not for what you can or should be because that may never happen and then love will be disappointed forever… I wait for people who will know me for what I am and accept me with all my quirkiness.

People

Who will love me not because of the relationships that bind us without any choice...

Who will love me when I walk into a book store with no cash in hand and a resolve to not buy any more books but then compelled by the presence of books around me, I end up "investing" some more of my finances in books that I wonder when I will be able to read…

Who will love me as I make resolves to get down to exercising but all I manage to do is eat more chocolates… :)

Who will love me with that irritating argumentative tendency of mine to have an opinion on anything and everything and to say it honestly…

Who will love me when I talk to the stray dog which leaps at me everyday in hope of playing with me, but then I don’t play with it because the "obsessed with cleanliness person" in me does not want to get my hands dirty…

Who will love me when foolishly I try to lie and am caught time and again, cos I just cannot lie…

Who will love me despite the fact that I never really know what I want.. I can only start addressing the problem with what I don’t want in life… (Imagine going to the restaurant with someone who doesn’t know what she wants but will work at trying to rule out things she doesn’t want… what a sheer waste of time…but that’s what I do ;) !!!

Who will love me when I gaze at the moon and the stars for an eternity in a clear sky not wanting to get up and get back…

Who will love me despite my uncanny knack of sleeping early and not being able to stay up through a movie….

Who love me for my silences and my gregarious laughter

Who love me for my hypocrisy when I want to stay behind the camera but I want everyone else to stay In front if it…

Who will love my lack of diplomacy and social inadequacy because I just don’t like pretenses…

Who will notice how my eyes light up at the thought of a problem or an idea…and who will notice the lines on my forehead when I cringe due to the vanity on display…

Who will see the little child in me wanting to be comforted even as I look ready to take on the world…

Who will love me for my ability to cry unabashedly in every movie despite my claims of being strong and sensible…

Who will love my incessant chatter when I am In the mood for it and my plentiful silences when I am not…

Who will love me for my tendency to make life difficult for myself because it scares me that I am heading the wrong way when things come easy…

Who will love the fact that I still hope for fairy tale endings but I still prepare for the worst…

Who will love me for the fact that I make lists and forget them, spend without thinking twice but religiously tally my expenses…

Who will see all the quirkiness but who will also see the little girl who wants to do all she can for the people she loves…

"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

Songwriters: Pritchard, Michael; Wright, Frank E., Iii; Armstrong, Billie Joe

A River runs through...

Like the banks of a river, you and I are similar in so many ways and yet so different. We share, we exchange and we understand and yet, we can never be the same. We are as different as the fertile soil on one hand and the rock on the other, as the river of humanity runs through… Our past, present and future are shared in some ways and yet we are at very different stages of our beings.

I am the rock that has hardened with time and has weathered many a storm. I live for myself by my own code, unmindful of what the world may say or think. I reach out to the skies to find my highest potential for no one but me. I have battled all my life against the forces of nature, in holding my own. I was driven by perfection and by my vision of utopia. I spent my life like a constant struggle from one test to another trying to better myself and prove myself all over again. Driven by perfection there was always more to do and never enough to celebrate. Driven by expectations, of me and of others I was never able to accept people for what they are. I could only see their potential and this unfulfilled potential unsupported by hard work and determination only angered and disappointed me. Over the years, I have seen my world come crashing down many a times with expectations unfulfilled and dreams shattered. I have been chipped and bruised. I have been run down and I have been run over. Over the years, in the tiny crevices of my being there is new life in the form of new hopes and dreams. They are a result of all my toil and they make life worthwhile for me.

You, on the other hand are the fertile soil on the banks at the other end of the river. You have lived your life and enjoyed your intellect, unhurried by challenges, trials and tribulations. Like the fertile alluvial soils, the river carries you with it. You are moulded by the river of humanity as it charts its course. You exist with the river and because of the river. You live for the masses, oblivious of your true potential as your goals are different from mine. On your fertile soils grow many an idea. The river that makes you who you are and you live your life with the river.

You look at the rock in me and say "Why are you so stubborn ? Why not flow with the river ? Why stand at the periphery and watch the world go by ?". And I watch you being carried from shore to shore, tossed up and down, with very passing current and I wonder - "Why not hold your ground ? Why not let go of the river ? Why not live for your own sake for that is the highest purpose after all ?".

But then, that’s who we are… It is our nature and such it will be… Until you are hardened by the forces of nature into the rock that forms the river bed and I weathered by storms form the river bank… And then life would have perhaps come a full circle… I see your future like me and you could see my future like you… Who is to survive, who knows ? And who knows whose way is the right way to live… It is only our nature that makes us so and that's how we will be till the forces of nature and the winds of time work their charm...

Living in randomness...

Mornings have always been my favorite time of the day as the first rays of the sun gently nudge the world awake. The campus where I am currently residing in, is a wooded enclave and is beautiful sight in the early mornings. It is wonderful to see the first rays of the sun passing through the foliage…

Gently touched by the first rays of light, the leaves glow with a golden hue as if emanating a divine light… The sunlight filters through these leaves and envelopes you like a warm blanket. It is on one such morning that I 'saw' these trees standing tall in the early morning sun. Waking up early is not a rarity with me and I have often marveled at the beauty of this sight but then for some reason, the true import of this vision had just not hit me for so many years...

Every tree had leaves of different colors and shades not just because of their age and size but also because of how the sunlight illuminated them. Some of the leaves were shining with an inherent brilliance as the first rays of the sun gently nudged them… The others although not very far seemed to be still in the cold as they happened to be away from the path of light. Being in the same part of the world, on the same tree, on the same branch, two leaves in such close proximity indeed had very different fates. Was this destiny ? Was this fate ? Was this controlled by the hand of God ?

The only thought that sprang to my mind was "Of course not !!".... It was just chance and randomness that one leaf happened to be in the direct path of light while the other was not... And at some other point in time, the other leaf will get its share of light... in this day or another, in this month or another or perhaps even in this year or another !!!

Things will even out in the long run...

This thought actually led me to draw a parallel with our lives... Ever so often, I ask myself voicing the question of - "Why me ?", "How can life be so unfair ONLY to me?", "How can the other person be so lucky ?"... Every time things have not gone my way and randomness has played its part in keeping me at the losing end of the spectrum (at least in my perception at that point in time)…my heart and my mind have only cried out this one question… And for at least a decade now, I have explored the various possible answers to this question without a satisfactory explanation…. As a theist, an agnostic and sometimes as a deist, I have tried to understand and address this one question. It is now finally as a pantheist or perhaps an atheist that I think I have come close to finding an acceptable answer….

Why should I consider myself any different from the leaf on the tree ? Sometimes, I am farther away from the rays of light and sometimes, I get plenty of sunshine... This is just pure randomness whereby chance is shaping my life... The only difference is that I, being a sentient being, am capable of making my choices, and directing the course of my life... Why is such randomness easy to accept for me when it comes to a leaf but not when it affects me directly ?

And now every time things fall apart and don't go my way, I try and remind myself of the leaf on the tree at far end of the spectrum...

I cross my fingers and bide my time for the light to come my way... :-)

Happy Birthday...

Sometimes as you are rushing through life, running frantically towards an end, everything seems hazy and distorted... At such times, moments arise which cause you to pause and wonder, to sit back and reminisce, to look forward and hope... And then the world appears clear and sharp... and life feels good !

A birthday was that punctuation needed for me to sit down and take stock... Asked to write about a group of people and a relationship which bound them together... I was at a loss for words and starting from the beginning was the only way forward...

The story as I see began nearly half a decade back...

Like monochromatic beams of light streaking through the universe there were 7 independent people who saw the world in a completely different light.... They had their own hues, views, and perspectives which tinged their worlds.

However, as destiny and randomness would have it, the forces of nature converged these seven lives like a prism and bound them into the bonds of friendship. Their disparate lives and viewpoints converged and their hues blended in harmony. Wholesome and complete, like the pristine purity of white light which emerges through the convergence of the 7 colors in a prism this group of people complemented each others' strengths and weaknesses. This was one complete being. There was the geek and the dude, the nervous wreck and the lazy bum, the planner and the executor, the yakker and the soul searcher, the sweet toothed and the spice seeker, the fortunate and thunderstruck, the artist and the muse, workaholic and the 'alcoholic'... :-)

Like a crystal which grows as if with a life of its own around a nucleating point these relationships too grew and attained a form and a life of their own... It was a friendship that framed our lives together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle...

As we battled our daily horrors, we had each other to fall back on. Our sorrows were divided and our joys multiplied...

In this new light, the world seemed like a different place. As one of those 7 colors, I saw the world for what it was through these various perspectives. It was a new world for me as my tinted glasses gave way to a brighter and a clearer picture of the world and its people. I saw the world for what it was and I saw myself for what I could be....

And then as we wove our way through the warps and wefts of space and time, these relationships and the bonds that held us morphed....but like the rainbow that streaks the sky, we seven friends stayed together as we charted our life's trajectories and followed our destines. To the world this friendship was like a beautiful rainbow with seven different colors but to us we were all parts of the same whole... Our lives were intertwined as they were woven together with a shared past even though the future lay in the unknown....

And today, as I type trying to wish someone special a wonderful birthday, I see the beginning of an end, the end of an era...

I also cross my fingers and hope that this end as i see, is only the end of the beginning, a beginning which held great promise ! A beginning which I deeply cherish as it defines me in more ways than one... I hope that as our lives unfold, our past will hold us together even in the future.

But then the melancholy is for another day and another time. Today is a time to celebrate... Its a time to wish someone the best in the world with the faith that wishes do come true... And so...

Happy Birthday Girl !!!

I hope and wish that you have a wonderful birthday and an even better life ahead...

Of love that spurns....

What does one do when the worst comes to pass ? When what you dreaded for all those days, actually manifests ? When you have to stand at the periphery, helpless with your hands tied, watching your precious relationship drifting away….

What do I do when I see the people I love, giving up and going down… What do I do when people lose the spirit of life in them? When they choose inaction over action, submission over passion, fear over courage, obedience over defiance and tolerance over resistance ??

Can I interfere ?

Its their life and it has to be their decision. Its not my choice to make and so I have to stay away.

And so, with my hands tied, I stand at the periphery watching her give up… I scream and yell, wave my hands, but she can't see me. She is probably blinded by her tears. Her vision is probably blurred or maybe she has given up indeed. Away she goes from the dreams she hadn't yet dreamt of and the life she hadn't yet lived…

only because she refused to resist and she refused to dare.

What do you do when at such times, your heart tells you "I told you so"… when your mind refuses to accept that such irrationality can exist in the world…

When you feel cheated by hope and want to give up on it… I have always had a "love-hate" relationship with hope… It comes ever so easily into my life as if it were a lost soul mate visiting after many years… A chance encounter becomes a lovely affair as I fall in love with it all over again. My mind chooses to ignore the warnings of the heart as it lets hope rule… only till the day that reality hits back and I find myself hopeless and alone all over again…

I don’t mind hopelessness. Its brutal but its honest. It spares me the disappointment of failed hopes. It prepares me for the worst. It’s a companion for life. It stands by my side through the turmoil and does not leave me, as hope often does. It keeps me grounded for life as I take every step with caution avoiding every fall and hurt that might litter my path. It walks steady with me and holds on to me.

But then I find my will and my spirit only when hope is around. With her by my side, my labors feel lesser and my burdens lighter. My heart dares to fly only to hit the ground again but, for those few moments, it finds the wind beneath its wings and it flies. It soars above the sorrows and the miseries as it hopes for the best. It finds its spirit and its will. It dares to fight because it hopes for the change it wants.

And so my mind becomes a victim of my heart as it vacillates between hope and hopelessness.

A nameless thought...

Our lives are a result of our thoughts. Our lives are lived through our thoughts.

Every day and every moment, I try and fit my diverse thoughts into words. Words - these abstract entities that make my thoughts real. So much so, that, more often than not, our thoughts are trapped in the words we use. They sometimes find meaning and purpose through the words, only in the minds of a listener.

In this constant struggle to pick out the best of the words from the sea in front of me, I find my mind spaces to be crowded with words. Sometimes, I find my mind cluttered with words as I try and fit my thoughts into them. At other times, I find my mind cluttered with thoughts as I try and find words to fit them.

Not always do I find the perfect match.

Sometimes, however, in between these hours of madness, I discover silences.

Silences that fill me as I lose the need for words and thoughts. Silences that express everything beautifully.... Silences that abound in my mind spaces as I try and make sense of the world. Silences that resonate and remove the need for words. Silences that space out the words and de-clutter the mind. Silences that leave me wondering why I love these "words".

But then.... I soon realize the need for words. Words. My tools to think, to express, to feel and to let go...

And so, I switch between these two mind states alternately...
as my mind gets filled with words or silences....
as they resonate in me and I make sense of the world around me...