New things

I was fascinated,
You were the new flower,
Until the sun shined,
And the snow fell,
And rain poured,
Those were beautiful things.

And when it is all over,
When I am one with the time and space in you,
Will you still call my name?
Would you still desire the shape of me?
Or would you wait?
Till i die and be born again,
As something you never touched?

The Relationship Monster.

I was visited by an old friend tonight. Not a very old friend, not exactly a friend either. He is the relationship monster. We have had our differences, when he used to take awful control of my life, but its been a while.He is a fun guy. As long as he doesn't live in your closet and eat your pie, which for the record is what he does, almost always.
         I can imagine how most of you think I am being funny. But wait for it. Nobody sees the relationship monster when they are actually in a relationship, and it takes a lot of perspective to spot the bastard. Dealing with him is rocket science, if you don't realise what is going on. He makes his entrance when you are are all cozied up, in the warmth of your first real relationship. And then he just sits around, controlling all the crap you go through, till you finally say "Iam done!" and get married. I can not speak for every soul on this round planet, but I have been around for couple of decades, and happen to know enough people to run a sampling. So here is what I think
       The relationship monster never got to you when you were single, and never really thought about it. Remember when having a girlfriend or boyfriend wasn't a big deal, when the definition of a fun night was gaming with the boys, or star wars and pizza? Its when you are a teenager, (well, this depends on geography, ethnicity, character, and a lot of things.) when your friends start meeting girls, that you finally feel the need to fall in love, find your "perfect woman" and everything. Now, love is a paradox. Highly misinterpreted, or may be misunderstood. But we all have been here. And when your first relationship starts, you open your door for the relationship monster. Of course, we all believed back in school that the girl we met in the library was the one. But that changes. You break up with her. You break up with how loud she was or with her big nose. But you never break up with the relationship. You are sad. You want to feel warm and cozy again. You start missing a thing or two about being in a relationship, like not having to go for a movie alone, or being appreciated when you get a new haircut. If you look around, just when you are in bed eating ice cream feeling this way, you will see the relationship monster smiling. Because you, are on your way to repeat what you did. Find someone else and start the ordeal all over again, because, like they say you are in love with being in love.
        You are right. The rebounds. Well if it was a rebound, and you knew what you were doing, then good for you. But almost all the time, we don't realise it, until we have gone out with the rebound guy for a year or two. But then its too late. You are in quite a pickle, you will probably end up breaking his heart, and will be called a bitch by your social circle. And this is a vicious cycle. Just when you are depressed about this rebound, you find another one. God  knows how many times you end up in this mess. And every time, every single time, you tell your best friend how you are so very sure he is the right guy for you, and flood your facebook profile with pictures together, get a tattoo, all of which you are gonna regret as soon as you realise what you have done. Anyway, relax. It is not your fault. It is the relationship monster.
       When you see your friends break up, get back, or find a new guy, you are definitely happy for them, but you sometimes wish you could give them the red pill. But they are too happy to listen. And they are too precious to you and you don't want to be the reason for a dismay.Now let me tell you what happens when you dont step in. They get married. Yes. An honest to god creep once told me something that made my jaw drop. He said, he got married in his early twenties to this girl he was going out with. And a year later he started regretting every single bit of it. Marriage is a big responsibility everywhere. But in India especially, Your marriage is the responsibility of every cat and fly of your community. He tells me that he wants to flirt, just to make himself feel better, and urged me to cooperate, on moral grounds. I advised this gentleman to take control of his life, before telling him to leave me alone not-so-politely, but then I knew it was just my old friend having his fun.

      If you tell me I don't know what it is like, well I do. I am a normal human being. We were all vulnerable when we broke up. We hate the world, we hate life, we hate ourselves. It is good to have some comfort at that point. But this is when you make your legendary break up mistakes. Like developing feelings for your best friend, or your ex's best friend (which is worse) or you commit suicide (oh my god :/) or you become a drug addict (No comments!). The million possibilities!The last  two are for you to live with, (or die with) but the first two, are quite tricky. When you find your rebound, the rebound thinks he or she found their true love. You could ruin a perfect friendship, or complicate things beyond repair. So what do we do? Simple. Dont do it. Tell yourself that you are a strong person. Buy some new clothes. Go get some fresh air. Hang out with fun friends. (preferably of your same gender. For obvious reasons). Start doing things you like. Your ex shaped void is huge. I know. Repercussions of a breakup are catastrophic. I agree. But you will be surprised how things are going to fall into place very soon. You will find out, slowly that you have actually forgotten about your breakup. That you have more time for yourself these days. That noone is judging you, and that you don't need to convince someone about every decision you take. You feel liberated. You also feel better about not having to control someone. About not fighting, or fretting over somebody else's bad decisions. This is when you finally grow up and embrace life.
    Getting through a break up without doing anything stupid, actually makes you mature. You build your own life, not around a person, but by your self. This doesn't mean you stay single for ever, when you start thinking clearly and living life, you will find the right person, because you won't be looking at every single person you meet as someone to give you moral support. You can make wise decisions and not stupid ones out of an emotional outburst. Doesn't that make sense? Finally getting out of the clumsy mess you started and starting fresh.
    So, If you just broke up, you can consider me your best friend and take this advice. I am sweet that way. Or if you have already started another mess, fix it. Rightaway. Breakup with that rebound before things get out of hand. And if you are already married, I don't know. I cant tell you to make tragic decisions because I know it is hard. But life is long, and awfully long when you have got to live with regret. Now, this wisdom, isn't all mine. My dear friend, the relationship monster says you are welcome. I had to assure him that he can live in my closet if all of you start acting smart and he has nowhere to go. Damn it.






    

Goggles and Black holes.

So finally, after I had made the brave decision of quitting the job I have been working for a year now, I was at work today, like any other day, when it hit me that this phase of my life is coming to an end. It was pretty much a matter-of-fact thing till that point, like daily facebook stalking and coffee, till I started looking around, at the people around me, at my monitor, at the sound of, well i don't know what it is, just some perfectly embedded roar that is a part of my life now,.  A very meek "Oh my!" feeling washed over my matter-of-factedness. I don't consider myself sentimental, I am sure a lot of us don't. We move, move on, move away, stuff happen, yada yada, but I am sure most of us have looked around, like I did today and thought "Oh my". Well, if you haven't, here is why you should.
              In every phase of life there were few people, few things that defined that experience for you. And when you leave that behind, there is a huge you shaped hole in that experience, and a lot of people and things shaped holes in you. Both gets filled, in no time, but mostly, we miss the experience than the experience misses us. This generally starts when a sibling leaves home, or when you are the sibling who is leaving home. There is a big brother shaped hole in your life, one big black hole, inside which watching TV isn't fun anymore, because you can finally, watch whatever you want.You get over it, grow up and laugh about the things you did with the brother shaped hole. Fortunately or unfortunately, these big black holes get filled way too soon for most of us, and any amount of residue ceases to exist.A bit of it stays back on our Facebook news feeds, where we find out that our once best friend got married, had kids, or visited Paris. Social networking is a constant reminder of our past lives. Of college friends who should never meet our moms, of friends who should never meet our boyfriends, of old bosses who should never meet our new bosses. If you take a look at your friends list, and try to remember one experience you had with every one of them, one piece of the palpable reality pie both of you shared, you will feel each of them casting a he or she shaped black hole in you. Each of them telling you what you were, where you were. OH SHIT! :D
           Doesnt this make your life a perfect Yearbook?  Fascinates me. We literally travel from places and people to other places and people.You could have been a complete jackass in all of those. Not many people would have a you shaped hole in their lives, some might have a "Shoot at sight" next to the you shaped hole and some of them, well, there will be at least one other jackass you decided to be friends with. Remember the school BFF shaped hole, which was filled up by a college BFF shaped hole, which in turn was completely occupied by a job, lack of sleep, needy partner and controlling parents? The school you would have never thought that would happen. If she did, she would have looked around a bit more, may be.
           My friend called my "looking around" the "graduation goggles". Like how you miss someone the day you breakup with them, or miss college on graduation day, because you know it is going to end. That is completely different. You are free to do that the day you decide to stop doing what you are doing, like how I am probably going to, on my last day at work, but my "black holes theory" is about making sure you capture enough moments.   This post is not me telling you that  you need to keep in touch with your friends. Impossible is the word. I barely talk to one or two people i spent a decade of my school life with. This post just wants you to look around, maybe everyday, look at the faces around you. Look at who made you laugh today, those people who make up a huge part of your life today, so that when you wake up tomorrow and see "them shaped holes" in you, you won't be as disappointed as you could be. Because we all miss where we have been. We miss college, we miss the last company we worked in, We miss our exes.We complain, that is sort of a coping mechanism. Helps us sleep at night. But If you tell me "No man! it sucked so bad! I am so glad I am out of there" (I have said this myself, trust me, and I realised I was wrong) i am just going to ask you to look for a few black holes in you. Iam sure you will find lots that never got replaced!!

 Now,  Just to inspire you all to look around. Also because i found this hilarious :P

The pretentious rebel

Today is the day of the rebel.All of you who swim against the flow just to be noticed, not because you have a better place there. You swear on your own lack of self esteem and self confidence and perpetual need for attention that you are different from the rest of the world. Most of the times, you are miserable, tired of overselling yourself, and desperately looking for a refuge. A statement from someone that you are good, that you are competitive and for consolation, acceptance and reassurance that you aren't the sub standard obnoxious imbecile you thought you are. Thanks to Wikipedia and Google, you have random facts to throw at people, in an effort to convince others that you know better.
                         Well, what differentiates you from a real rebel? A real rebel believes in things because he thinks it is right and gets his things done, moves on with his life, least bothered about what others believe, unlike you, sitting there and talking about it. My pun is intended at people who claim to believe that there is no valentines day, take the pain to wear black to show how little they care, go home early when everyone is busy with their date, and will be found sobbing alone in the bathroom. Or those philosophers who preach that there is no god. Because their girl friend died in an accident, or because Richard Dawkins says so in God Dilusion. Or those who claim so strongly that relationships are complete hokum, and get married in two months. All of you, who are in a perpetual conflict with what you want to believe and what you believe, count on sleeping pills and drugs to achieve so called "sanity", try hard for approval, be the sanctimonious super hero and end up being the receiving end of awkward looks and sarcasm.
                        My advise would be, well, it is so much harder to live with what you believe in. If your girl friend died, cry and curse destiny, and do not go about convincing yourself that it happened and now there is no better tomorrow, that there is no god, and every other believer on the earth will face a tragedy and understand what you are talking about. If you are single on valentines day, well i don't even think anyone needs to take that situation seriously. Do not let the frustration make you a pretentious rebel. There is always a better positive way to deal with things. Best way is to confront your feelings, let it out, and not run away and suppress and live with a mask.

observation.

now, we are talking about a boring afternoon, more like one of the boring afternoons when i decide to go sit in a cafe and look at people. No. not a weirdo, i just like observing people. In a cafe you see desperate, desperately in love, in love and desperate, and in love, but desperate . You get more drama than a soap sometimes, and sometimes its just a bad day, few old people, a couple having serious discussion and a geek pretending to balance world economy on his laptop. so today, i was there enjoying my irish coffee (well, it wasnt that good. i mean, who puts cream with non alcoholic whiskey?) and a guy n a girl walks in. they sit facing each other n start talking. after what seemed like 3 songs on my playlist, another girl walks in. And sits next to the guy. And we have our couple! I am leaving the friend cum match maker out of the pun, the guy looked like he inherited his melanin count from his south African forefathers, and was in a grey safari suit. And the girl looked like she is capable of emptying credit cards. By the characteristics of the conversation that happened after, i am guessing she dumped him, and he was convincing her to take him back? well the guy was sobbing, sighing in despair... and he pretty much looked like the heart broken hero, especially with the BGM for the whole scene being a sad Tamil song playing in my ears. Now i wonder what the girl thought of me... the chick in a pink tshirt and purple headphones staring at her from the next table? admiration from the same sex boosted her ego, i assume, her expressions were sharper!as i got up and accompanied my friend out of the place, i was sincerely playing for our sad hero!
"love" is overrated?when i see all the drama associated to it, how much time every teenager and adult spends trying to find and maintain it, i cant help but think it is. Is it really having someone to love? or is it letting the world know that u have someone to love you and that you get laid too?
The other day, i got an update on my facebook newsfeed. guy posts on girls wall "i love you no matter what. iam in a relationship with you. and i dont care what people say." and the girl comments "if you want me you need to prove to me that you really love me". Now if i was making this shit up, i would have made it less cheesy, given my standards. What ran through my mind was that people dont love because they fell in love, they love cus its a social protocol. You are not cool if you dont get laid, or if you dont have a sad story where your ex brought misery upon you and you loved them unconditionally.
people, here are few things you should know:
1. well, a lot of people are in a relationship because they have unresolved family issues and they need someone to lie to about the made up step mother who beats them up.
2. a hikky from your sweetheart is  not cool. doesnt make you look loved. just says that if people dont start noticing you, you will start having sex in public soon.
3. nobody likes to hear about your love life. Half of your audience want you both to break up, cus either he/ she is single and is pessimistic about dying alone, or they are tired of your story. the other half, i belong there, we are not interested if your "guy" likes grapes.
4. most importantly, your facebook wall is not where you communicate with your sweetheart. if you don't know what privacy means, if you grew up in a refugee camp, let me tell you, if you dont respect your own privacy, respect the sane people on your friend list.

Call me a hypocrite, call me sad, but this actually makes sense to me. Again, iam not against people who love. Just criticizing those who advertise it. its time for some introspection and self analysis, or run for your USP.

... :)

wont you look through my eyes...and you will see...
how my world colored itself
wen u stepped in.
wont you love like me  and you will know..
how my heart sings everytime i see you..
you are my bowl of sunlight..
wont you light up my life..
to be your sunrise and sunset...
to be the rain that falls on your window pane..
like the mist kissing your face as you walk...
would you let me fill your life...
with mine...and everything thats mine...
and let there be nothing left of me..
let me fill your world with mine...everything thats mine..
so i can die yours.. and with all thats ours..
forever..
would you be mine forever?