They would just come to me – dancing like wind-swept wild flowers in a spring field, like jumpy-feet toddlers running into their mothers’ arms – and surrender to me unquestioningly.

I would then lovingly string them into endless beads of random prose and hearty poetry. And they would stay – shining between the yellowing pages of a tattered book, preserving their aging fragrance for a day like today.

A day like today.

Today, as I stood wordless, stripped of inspiration, bared beyond care and pointless to a fault – I flipped through those yellowing pages once again…and down they fell – the aging, loved-up beads.

They still bore a sweet remembrance, a mild fragrance of motivation and gave me back my words, the way they were -  souvenirs of  time.

And, once again those wild-flowers danced.

It’s been a long time coming. Long time.

My happiness has ceased to be a glass of chocolate. Why? My happiness is now as tortuous as the heart. It permeates me, consumes me, wakes me up to aching points I didn’t know existed.

My happiness isn’t simple any more.

I can’t comprehend my moods. I get happy, excited, nervous, sexy, confident, trainwrecked, sensual, overwhelmed, jealous, mad, angry – in a succession of moments. Love has taken on a new, more volatile meaning.

It’s scary.

Scary for I always envisioned it as something subtle, something sublime, something that would swimmingly transcend insecurities, jealousies and fears.

Apparently not.

Am I insecure or just have the right instincts? Am I constrained by my love or liberated by it? My hunches are so strong it’s painful to see the other think you a fool…I fear my foresight for once. Please let me grow, please let me be me the way I was…I have to let go of my dependencies, I must transcend. Only then can I get back what I once had: a glass of chocolate. Simple.

Hindsight: Vision 20-20 or trickery of the mind?

Sometimes, I feel hindsight and afterthought have become friends with me, unfailingly calling on me when foresight and insight get busy with deserving subjects.

I have also a reason to believe they’re morning people. After all, they show up punctually after every hazy night of thoughtlessness and impropriety, walking me out of the haze and making me face the sunny clarity of the “morning after”. Like good friends, they never really knock but walk in with an authority that comes only with trust and confidence.

I do think they trust me with their lessons and advice and I am luckier for them.

This morning, too, they came. But unlike the tiptoeing of initial days, today, they barged in and shook me out of the reverie of last night.

They told me something I knew but never perhaps understood in its entirety. They told me how beautifully life’s been embellished and how I must learn to appreciate the effort that’s gone into it.

How today, the life that I am experiencing with all its bells and whistles, is a series of moments put end to end. How I must know and absorb every one of these blessed moments with a sobriety of the knowledge that none of it would last for ever.

Hindsight and afterthought also made understand how lucky I am to be actualising some of my dreams: a chunk of time for self and its tremendous possibilities; a new, exciting location and a chance to explore it; and most importantly and most thankfully, an honest friend and a guide in a life-partner.

In the several blurry, maze-like moments of last night, I lost my way and missed the marvel of each one of these wonderful realities. I swayed, stumbled and then simply gave up; behaved a fool and cried like a brat.

Do I feel awful? Yes, I do — not for having being beaten by my own lofty expectations of the world but for harbouring those many-sized expectations in the first place. Will I change for good? Can’t make a promise on that but yes, I want to change for the better.

Without the crazy baggage of expectations and “has been”, I want to travel light. Just before they left for the day, hindsight and afterthought gave me an emergency helpline, should I want direction earlier than they can attend to me.

They directed me to *you*. Help me find some insight if not foresight.

Fire is Hot: Truth or fact?

I’ve never been much of what you may call a consistent ponderer. That’s not to say I do not brood, dwell, evaluate, toss-in-head, reason, reflect, mull or what have you. I attempt all of the above and then some more. However, the chief concern is my attention span that’s been a constant competition to the housefly. Words, phrases, statements, starkness, subtlety, sarcasm, love — all make a significant impact and provoke musings and opinion. But not many wise sayings make me ponder for ever after.

Constant observer, yes, but constant ponderer – not sure. (I am confident, though, that they register somewhere on the microchip and will be available on recall). But two words have caught my imagination for way too long now and each time I read them both — either in isolation or together but mostly interchangeably (tch!) — I spend the better part of my conscious hours trying to sort them out. In fact, even as I write this, I realise I keep thinking about them all the time.

Hmm. Truth and fact. What separates the two? Are these two the same? Or is there more to one than the other? Is it fair to use them interchangeably?

Analogies confuse me. Is “truth” absolute? Is there one, single, applicable-to-all truth? Is there more to this thing called truth than just facts?

Let me exemplify my confusion. That sun rises in the East is a fact universally acknowledged and however many assertions can’t prove otherwise. Therefore, popularly, it’s also “true”. So does a “universally accepted” fact become truth?

Then again, there’s the tricky question of “my truth” and “your truth”. That Faith works is my truth and that it’s to no avail is someone else’s. That it’s 2 pm where I am and 5 am where my mom is. So, is something that’s subjective also truth?

Peter Vardy’s Realists vs Anti-Realists is an interesting one. The Realists are of the opinion fact is one definite answer for a question or belief, with a rider of ‘though I may be wrong’. An Anti-Realist believes answers are specific to a culture, society or person — belief in God or a form of him being one example.

In legal parlance, there seems to be a clear distinction between fact and truth. Fact becomes a statement of reflection on the world as it is, a statement devoid of all embellishments and adjectives, a statement without bells and whistles – a technically correct and accurate statement.

Truth, legalists say, is a larger holistic statement that’s not just made of facts but of deed, motive and emotion. Hence, “truth and nothing but the absolute truth”.

(Argh, again, motive and emotion are relative so how can truth be absolute?!)

Sigh. I do wish I could find an answer to this onion-peel of a question. And then sometimes I sadistically wish I don’t. That’ll keep me pondering for long. May be, for good.

written in july 2009.

often – and oftner in the past few days – i’ve imagined myself sitting cross-legged on the couch, laptop propped up by a pillow, listening to the acoustics on a rain-lashed tin roof, taking generous swigs from a steaming mug of tea/corn soup and typing out – one letter a time – everything that has passed between the same times of this year and last – some the most life-altering days in my 26-year memory.

however, for the lack of timely and simultaneous availability of all the above mentioned, coupled with a studied preference for guilty pleasures of unproductivity, it remained unsaid. unwritten.

if a histogram were to be made of my life in the past 12 months — serendipity on a scale of naught to 10 – on Y axis and calendar time (July to July) – on the X axis — it could well give the Manhattan skyline a run for its storeys.

from agreeing on spending life with someone-to deciding on who to spend it with-to being an unrelenting participant in “mission before and after” of crazy house refurbishing-to spending precious (wo)man hours pondering over the right pink for bangles-to furiously debating the texture of the hara-bhara kebab for it qualify for the wedding menu-to discussing, followed by frantic recceing, the swellest swathes of land and shade for the venue – the bars get higher, sky-scraperish. and the to’s and hyphenations sum up only one half of this period.

life was one sinful dessert, dripping with the gooey goodness of festivity and anticipation, ready to be had with relish; fulfilling and hypnotic.  all the  worries of the world were dealt with  with much ease and leg cramps and knee aches embalmed with sweet, steaming cups of chai. arguments between parents was dealt with by sitting them down for a “don’t reverse-age” lecture and hours of tedious list-making was followed by pleasurable seconds of ticking/striking off the achievements.  many a lunch comprised of aalu-tikki and anar juice at lajpat nagar and many dinners were lazily wrapped around forks with chilly sauce for accompaniment. walking shoes replaced heels and the car became a temporary store-house for retail. room resembled a warehouse from ‘junkyard wars’ where work was perpetually in progress — boxes of invitation cards, transparent wrapping of saris, glittering paraphernalia…and then some more. the big day arrived wrapped in silk and satin, all hues of golden and mauve-pink, smelling sweetly and dreamily of crimson roses and tangerine marigolds and of scarlet henna. oh, the trembling feet and the nervous energy, the flashing cameras and a thousand pair of eyes gazing — some lovingly, others wonderingly. oh the un-suppressible giggles…the jitters. then the state of married-ness…love, happiness, companionship and shyness.

then came the heartache of separation — first with parents, then soon as i got together with him — with him. the rest went by in a haze…office, people, around till came july and it became clear there was unison and yet another separation on the cards…

…i have lost the thread somewhere…cannot complete this. histogram dips, skyline diminishes…manhattan still rules.

a decade must be an awfully long time.

here’s to happy decades.

i am a sucker for crests but find myself increasingly thrown into troughs. sometimes, when the tidal waves throw me high up in the air, filling my lungs with oxygen so pristine i choke on excess, i forget the other side. at the other times, i am pushed down, under the deep blues…so deep the buoyancy doesn’t work.

till recently i faulted myself for the state i find myself in. i wondered if i had always been wrong — an intruder, an outsider in the grand scheme of things, an unwelcome guest who’s overstayed her welcome in the party of someone’s life. today, i am made to believe i am not wrong and that hostility was pre-ordained, irrespective of whether i happened or not.

i know not which is worse — believing you were the mistake or knowing it doesn’t matter anyway.

But these days are speed bumps on a highway
Meant to slow you down, not stop you midway
‘Coz your destination is a journey in itself
And the search is about unraveling yourself
So breathe easy even if the sun don’t rise
Darkness is momentary, say all men wise

Smile ‘n move on along the path you seek
You may tire but won’t ever feel weak
But remember this highway has no shortcuts
It’ll take a toll and throw at you ‘ifs and buts’
So be open to whatever comes your way
As time will speed you up, come what may

And if ever you feel you’ve reached a point
Where paths split and you’re stuck at a joint
Remember all roads lead to that one place
And it’s only about what instinct you chase
So put all your faith in that power above
Believe in yourself and that li’l thing called love

Today’s parting was at various levels…last, frantic minutes were spared for final hugs and deep emotions got spent on a spontaneous trickle down the cheeks. There were the Shadow Lines, the magic-magnetic moments, the bear-hugs, the handshakes and the exchange of gift-wrapped keepsakes. There were also chain SMSs, plenty smilies and reminiscence of four long years.

Then there were none.

There was also the lunch across a Chinese table on a sweltering August afternoon — randomness shared along with spoonsfull of steam rice, honey potatoes and garnished with blank looks. Castles were built in an air laden with lyrics such as ‘if tomorrow never comes’, crazy dreams were woven around every prick of the fork and washed down with cold water.  There was also a walk down the posh street. It carried none of the crazy highs of previously experienced spontaneity, neither did it seem like a goodbye long due. There were no hugs, no handshakes, no last-minute anythings. Just a ‘see you’ which went unreturned. And then, parting with a part of myself. I realised it today that we are best unplanned. We will meet soon, magician. We must.

I’ll miss you, sorely. All.

Time for a new journey. Hope to cross paths at the soonest.