Tuesday, 19 May 2015

"What!! You are going to have Dinner at the restaurant ALONE?"

There is a reason we hate being alone. You know the “man is a social animal thing” however cliche it is IS for the wrong reasons. And no matter how hard I try to make sense of it, what stands out for me in it, is just this:

Humans wish they meant something. To someone. To their spouses, children, lovers, someone. Anyone. Its almost as if we don't have a sense of identity unless we are validated by the presence of another in our lives. Another soul  to gratify our needs to feel existent, feel eased out on the pressures of judgement, to look happier to the world , accomplished, to scare away the fear of loneliness, of appearing like we are  not unworthy of love.  Humans wish we mean something to someone, we are the center of universe for someone, we make a difference to someone in our moments of presence and more in times of absence.

We, the superior of all races, wishes and prays hard, to find a loving wife, a wife who is dutiful and pretty and considers only me, her Hero. We want our children to be dependant on us and we wanna make big decisions for them, because we are wise.  We want to be loved at our workplace, because it makes us feel important. We want to be married by a certain age or are dying to have that  relationship for ages now, because we want to feel secure & safe. No more losing out, no more feeling sorry for ourselves, no more waiting and feeling like a loser.

We hate being alone, Spending time alone, Eating alone, drinking alone, watching a movie alone.Because no one does that. ‘Noone does that’. If I do that, people will only think im lonely and im unworthy. Its just an active demonstration of what I feel deep inside and don't wanna showcase to the world anyway.  Spending time alone is not for me. I don't like the kind of pressure I feel when people at the restaurant welcome me with sympathetic glances at how hollow and shallow my life is. Vacuum fills my life when I have no one to argue my points of view with about a movie or a play. Eating alone would also mean avoiding chewing and relishing every morsel of my food rather gulping it down my throat given the non verbal body language of all the waiters looking into my plate and wondering where my plus 1 is. Being alone would mean lying you need a table for 2 and ending up sitting alone for the rest of the evening. It would also mean paying the entire bill by myself and not being able to finish the whole plate of food by myself.

And of course I disagree.

If the source of our validation is another human being, our sense of identity and happiness will be at his mercy. Notwithstanding the fact that the person we choose might be our soulmate and  hence the person who cares about us the most, even still. The existence & presence then, of that person in our lives will determine what we feel and what we don't feel, basis what the person says and does to us. Is that how we wanna live our lives?

If we don't like our own company, I wonder if anyone ever will enjoy ours. You could be the clown amongst a group of people, but if u cant humor yourself & take yourself less seriously, you haven’t truly developed a sense of humor.

If we feel lesser about ourselves for the absence of a lover, we will never know the embrace of our own soul in times when we are but alone in a crowded room.

If we feel  embarrassed about engaging in activites that make us happy for want of company,what really makes us happy then, except for the presence of another person in our lives?
Being alone is not being lonely.

Its about being happy with our own company. Its about judging ourselves not on the basis of anything external. Its about being happy with the kind of people we are when we are alone, not the kind of person we become when there are others around.

It's being courageous. Falling in love with ourselves ( of course not in a narcissistic way) and being able to hear our own thoughts , while simultaneously having a conversation in our heads, prioritizing our life goals, just being observant and hence sensitive  to people beyond our immediate periphery of events.

Being alone  and spending time alone is calming. It calms your nerves and collects you. You start evaluating what you stand for, Like a calm sea which is deep and needs a moment to assess its depth.

Its not embarrassing and the world doesn't judge you. If anything, You let them judge you and you shouldn't.

Much love.


To Me. J

Saturday, 16 May 2015

Will You Stay?

If you know you are descending in a valley, dark & deep
with no escape, no fear of adrenaline, no heartbeat.
Will you stay?

If there are reasons galore to get out & explore,
and yet not find that goal you want,
Maybe there wont be that dream, waiting on you.
As well you might stay in swampy , barren lands where grows no fruit, no flower, no tree
Will you stay?

Will you only write of hopeful conquests, of dreams real
And will you grasp the breakable reality, in place of distant destiny
Will you love yourself & gather courage in your pretty hopeful heart
or Will you stay?

Will you have faith & love for the lord, 
A place that exists, the only real world 
When the time is right, the world arrives
or Will you stay, in the past, fear of letting go, merciless & binding. 

Will you fly?
Will you dream?
Will you hope?
Will you let go?
Will you stay strong?
Will you pray? 
or Will you stay?


Monday, 20 April 2015

Does love complement or Supplement our lives?


A quote on a sitcom I was watching recently got me thinking. One of the actresses, playing the role of a simple ambitious small town girl who is desolate and gasps...”All I needed was to fall in love with a person who completes me”.

I was stunned & befuddled.

Why do we need anything or anyone to complete us? Are we saying we aren’t good enough as we already are? Do we need things to make us feel special, other people to validate us and make us feel treasured or loved? Are single/divorced/widowed men or women leading incomplete and hopeless lives?

I think the issue is not this EXACT question itself. What the character in the episode and so many people I know ( sometimes myself) are really saying is: “We need certain pre-defined gratification for us to feel validated, important & arrived in our lives” The issue is the mindset that most people have around a variety of what they term as ‘well-defined routes to happiness’ which makes them think to themselves:

·         If I find a job that pays me X, I will feel complete/happy.
·         If I find a job with THAT company, I will feel complete/happy
·         If I find THAT kinda PERSON to marry & fall in love with, I will feel complete/happy
·         If I realize THAT DREAM, I will feel complete/happy.

 Truth is, at various points in my own life I myself have felt that the gratification of a certain goal will make or break my life. I know the gnawing pull, that uncomfortable sensation in the heart which comes from constantly fixating on a goal my mind has set itself on. But the truth also is, I also know the temporary & fleeting sense of happiness that lasts shorter than the life of a flower in full bloom , when we do meet our goals. It doesn't stay.

Its in those times that we wish we could achieve the fine balance of consistent  Self love & Ambition, a force that constantly invigorates our inner strength delving in self love along with the force that pushes us further ahead, edging us on to take newer flights, make newer dreamboards.

We are NOT our jobs, our dreams, our marriages, our relationships. They are a part of US. They ARE NOT Us. Don't define your life with the parameters of what you have achieved. The world judges you basis your achievements & that's a parameter designed to always make you feel lesser than who you really are. 

Monday, 13 April 2015

The Unaffordable Self Love paradigm

Its simple. 

Its not how you dress, or how your hair looks. 

It is not the Clarks or a Hill road kolhapuri. 

The Fossil or a Thai Fossil

Your bad vocabulary or a few loaned words

poor Skilled or Skilled poorly

It doesnt matter. 


It doesnt matter except to you. 

It matters to you and tips the scale 

of self love and acceptance

It builds and stalls your anxieties 

of strange glances and uncomfortable pitch

As though all the lies they screamed through the Screen told you, are true. 


They lied, you believed. 

Who needs to pay a price for self esteem?

Who worries if self love is affordable?

Who cares if we succeed with both?

They lied, and we will not believe. 

Peace, Confidence & Love are as free as the Stars. 

And naked we embrace all of it. 


A man at the coffee shop and my favorite cappuchino

I am sitting at a coffee shop in a decently crowded mall. I can see a lot of families , parents with their kids , husbands and wives, grand parents and grand children looking at the myriad displays of toys, jewellery, sarees, books, home furniture. Many look past the windows and some enter. Many find the stuff expensive, few pay up and leave.
At the coffee shop is a man. Aged 30-35 probably . I notice he wears a hearing aid. I know that he cant hear me. Ive been to this place too many times now. I remember him. I ‘enunciate’ the word ‘ cappuchino’ . He nods his head. I add ‘small’. He half nods. Im not sure he heard me. I use my hands to demonstrate. I make a C with a palm of my hand and I say ‘ small’ He nods in affirmation, quite confidently this time. I take a seat.
I see a young 27-28 year old woman arrive with a man by her side. They look like a couple, unmarried. She wants Tea. They don’t really know why this man at the counter is not able to understand her. He write down the word “ tea? Tea bag is available”. She asks him a few more questions by writing on a piece of paper. And now he knows what she wants. Hes struggling, but he looks very confident. Not a hint of unsurety.
I look at him and I look at me. His loneliness must be so much worse than mine I imagine. At least my loneliness can be escaped for a while by all this noise. I can escape with music, by theatre, by the sound of my own voice and the sound of other people’s too. I can escape the depths of darkness and the Silence that I dread, by filling up life with as much noise as I can. Can he? What does he do when he wants to talk to someone and express his deepest fears and joys? What does he do when he’s so angry and hurt, when all that he needs to do to let it out is scream and shout? How does he sincerely, continuously work every single day, without the music to pep him up when he’s travelling or to calm him down when hes tired and frustrated. He’s as much human as you and me. Im sure he struggles to live with constant hopelessness of extraordinary life, extraordinary love and extraordinary lifestyle.
As I see him relentlessly working through all the work he’s been doing as I write; I wonder if he has faith. I wonder if he worries so much about a future he hasn’t seen and about a present hes probably not very happy with. Is he happy about where he is? Does he believe that life will get better as he goes along? Does he live in faith and hope, believing that God is looking after him. God wont disappoint him, that he will have everything he truly wishes for and prays for, if they are in God’s plan that is. God never disappoints, He has the best plans always. Hes working with so much sincerity; so much love. Maybe God wants us to have patience sometimes. The best things come to us when we wait. And Maybe the man in the coffee shop behind the counter is doing just that. How little faith we have, how little love.

Wednesday, 18 March 2015

The girl who needs just a conversation.



There is a girl I know who only wants to talk. Yes, the one who also only wants to listen.
First, She searches for the perfect person, filled with imperfectness and struggle.
She looks for any sign of restlessness or sometimes absolute peace.
She Yearns for his eyes and hands and legs and skin to do the talking first. Before those words emanate.
She Charms him and she laughs at herself while she desperately looks for the glint in his eyes.
She adopts his skin to let him know that “its okay”
She urges him to feel her pulse just as she feels his.
She talks about life, the past that was, the present there is and the future there is to seek.
That's all she knows. She wants to have conversations about faith, about life, about hurt, about sorrow, about pain, about childhood memories, about beauty and travel and everything in between.
She wants to fall in love.
She wants to LIVE life. The hair-raising experience like Life. Where tears flow out the moment you revisit the above. Sometimes with pain, but mostly with nostalgia and joy.
Like a Hollywood movie, which is music, drama, action and then a happy ending.
She wants just a conversation.  With someone who is present, someone who is really there with you. Listening to you and all the words that come out of your mouth.
And understands them the way u need to be understood. And Vice versa.
And she waits, with a book, a prayer and a smile.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then years pass, and I meet this girl again.
Is it her painted toe-nails or the curves of her youthful body, or is it her freckled skin or the tremor on her lips?
I don't recognize her, a ghost, searching yearning for a kill, shes lost her childish charm, her laughter, her gait
A woman who looks beyond when she looks at you, her eyes searching for her soul, restless and hopeful
Her reluctant lips speaking reluctant words, yet articulate, enunciated.
She seems more content now, yet a desperate discomfort just before she looks away
She hardly speaks, she doesn't listen. She absorbs my glance and smiles warmly
Noone can read her, Noone can know.
Noone can attempt to understand her skin and soul.
The girl who just needs a conversation, a lost child to a woman.
A woman who contemplates Life and questions hope.
A woman who needs not love, not to live life.
A woman who doesn't just need a conversation.
A woman whose mind you will never know.
A simple unique movie plot is awaited, not Hollywood drama.
She tremors yet keeps calm
As she waits, Hoping against Hope.
With a book, a prayer and a smile.

The woman who doesn't just need a conversation.  

Friday, 13 February 2015

Catharsis

He stares, She fidgets.

In an instant when their eyes meet, his heart sinks. Her’s flutters.

Deciphering a moment, She begins with memories, mostly good ones.

Deciphering too much emotion, He measures his words and alters his thoughts.

He is unsure he says.

She is in love she says.

The tumultuous drive to touch the tip of her fingers is submerged now,

 The loud clanging of her heart breaking makes her wish he spoke louder now,

The moment is over; emotion has given way.

He looks away. She stumbles