It Was Love At First Sight

I am 37, still a romantic at heart. But somewhere the definition of love has changed. Completely. Today love is understanding, companionship...exchange of views and opinions. Today, love to me is looking forward to growing old with each other. Wondering which all stations will relationship train stop at over the next few decades.

But love was not always this. I was watching the Christmas Episode of The New Girl, suddenly I was taken back to when I was 18, Christmas of 1995.

I remembered a certain person I met then. How the small things they do then which move us. A look here, and a gesture there. How he held my hand and guided me on the busy roads while crossing the street. How he held the door of the car, or how he would take my name, with an alien accent.

How the instant connect would make me blush. It felt like love. It made me feel like I am the most beautiful person in the room, the most interesting.

I wish time and life wouldn't harden us like they do. I wish we could all always have the ability to feel that way even today. I wish life wouldn't kill the innocence of an 18 year old. I wish we could all still have the ability to fall in love at the first sight.

But its better this way.

Its about the long haul now. Love is not about skipping a beat. Love is not about the spring in our step the day after the first date. Love is about knowing that he is always and will always be there for me. Love is about sitting in the same room for hours and not talking. Its about the person taking you to the most peaceful place and making you feel secure in his arms with a kiss on your forehead.

Love is what makes you accept each other with all the scars. But still once in a while when a memory from the past comes back... one can't help but cherish them. 

Your candle's burned out long before...

She was the people's princess...

With her kind eyes and a 1000 watt smile

She won hearts all over. 

For the teenager in me she was a fairytale come true.

A proof that royalty can be human too. 

16 years hence and her smiling face remains a vivid memory...

Princess Di... you touched lives of people you never knew existed

Kindness has no race, color, boundaries...

You were a proof of that. 

You epitomized the modern woman...

who knows what she wants and goes for it. 

We thank you, for showing us that there is a unique satisfaction in 

following our hearts. 

You legend will remain forever, in all our hearts.

"They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?" -- Princess Diana

It's Never About The Can Opener

He came home tired after a day of work. Harrowing meetings. Marketing targets. They can make any sane person to "Ka-Boom". She is juggling kids' homework, household chores and deadlines at her writing job. Dinner's not prepared. There was absolutely no time. 

He asks for dinner she says she has not made it. He looks for the can-opener to open the can of baked beans. 

These complicated can-openers!!! It slips from his hand and so does the half opened can of beans! 

URGH! Damn!

And there starts the huge argument.

He complains about the can opener. She screams about the fact that he is making a big deal out of nothing. He walks out of the house is a huff! She bangs the kitchen door, and gets back to the kids' homework.

On the face of it, they are fighting over a Can-Opener. But it's never really about the can opener. Is it?

Its about unrealistic expectations. About each of us feeling slighted. Its about how we all think that we are doing the major chunk of our duties, and that our partners are taking us for granted. At that moment to her the husband is the biggest jerk and an ogre. To him the wife is the complete witch. 

At times like these we, for the life of us, can't remember why we got married in the first place. 

This happens cause our brain tends to categorize memories much like the neighborhood library. When we are happy we will only remember the happy times. When sad, only the sad memories will come through. When angry, only all those memories that will feed our anger will surface. 

This is when we need to tell our brain to take a time out. Take a deep breath and try and switch off. No, not try and reconcile. Just switch off. Once the heat is cooled off and we revisit the catalyst that started the fight, we notice that it was such a non-issue. 

It's now a good time to sit and talk. And discuss what's really bothering us. A lot of times couples end up fighting not because we hate with other. But because either we are frustrated with the mundane day to day grilling that we call life, or cause we are just not able to take enough time out from our lives to be with each other. Our need to be with each other manifests itself in the form of petty arguments that end up spiraling into big fights. 

All couples, however busy our lives, need to take out that 30 minutes out of our lives to tell each other how much we miss each other or how much we really need each other to have a sane life. 

So next time we are in a fight, we just need to remember...It's Never Really About The Can Opener.

Growing Up with Independent Women!

Sitting in my bedroom I watched my 9 year old strut around in my 3 inches heels, the roadside scarf I bought in Goa around her neck, my shades on her head...admiring herself in the mirror. 

Brought a smile to my face. Reminded me of all those times I wore my mom's Sarees and acted like her. 

However, when I look back, wearing my mom's saree was in a way an expression of my desire to be like her. If I am even 1/4 a woman my mom is, I know I am good. 

I grew up observing my mom, my aunts, my mom's best friends... all women successful and independent in their own way. 

They are/were not women who burned bras. They were not woman who wore modern outfits. They were woman who stayed within the norms of a patriarchal society and still maintained their individuality. 

Without ever forcing their ideals and values on me, they still managed to influence me. They didn't have to go out partying or smoke a cigarette to teach me what forward looking  women are like. 

They in their own silent ways taught me what I needed to learn the most. That whatever may happen never lose your own true self. Never stop marching ahead deterred by the hurdles of life. 

Work around the hurdles. Know what you want from this life and go get it. While you do that, stay connected to your roots. Be compassionate. Laugh when you want. Cry when you feel low. Then wipe away those tears and keep walking. 

My grandmother taught me that age is just a number. My aunt taught me how to laugh in extreme pain. My mom... she still teaches me everyday how to stay sane in the face of adversity. 

Women in my life... taught me how I can be a mother, a wife, a daughter and still not lose touch with my inner desires. They taught me how to walk in their shoes and never trip. 

I love you all... I wish I can pass on the same vigor that you possess to my daughter. 

I wish I can teach her to be a better person than I have ever been and half of what you all have been. 

You all have been role models, but you never tried to influence my final assessment or judgment about how life is supposed to be.

Cameo appearances...

Nothing hurts more than meeting a friend who has faded away. Nothing hurts more than thinking of a friend who has faded away. 

Why do friends fade? 
Why do we beat ourselves over them? 

May be its because as kids we were always taught that every relation lasts forever. The genesis of the term BFF is that. That we will be best friends forever, or until one of us dies. 

Maybe some friends are meant to be in your life for a short time. If I knew this in my childhood, maybe all those friends who have faded away from my life... I would have made many more memories with them. Made an effort to document all those memories. Just so I could sit on a day like this and go over all of them... and they would always bring a smile to my face. 

At every stage in my life I have made friends and at some point they have faded away. I have never tried to pull them back. 

One can't.  
One shouldn't. 

The person who has faded away, had only that long a role to play in our lives. Cameos appearances in our lives. 

Our life is not a one-act play. Its an epic. Some cameos are forgettable... they are better that way... some cameos make a deep impact and change the course of our life. Either way they are cameos. There is only this much place for main protagonists in this play. That's they way it should be.

Friends touch our lives in a way that no one else can. They touch, they feel and then some stay on and a few fade away... its the law of nature. 

They move on and so do we...enriching our lives in ways that nothing else can. Making our lives a cluster of memories and anecdotes that sometimes make us smile and other times tear us apart. 

If nothing tore it apart then the metamorphosis will not take place. But without metamorphosis our life is not an experience worth having... 

Should the destination overshadow the journey?

Sitting in the first class compartment of the train, I started wondering—if the reason all of us are running after that elusive emotion called happiness, is cause we tend to give the destination more value than the journey? Getting to a particular place is more important than the road that takes us there. A true life traveler knows that while the destination is important, its the road that takes us there and the journey on that road is what makes life that it really is. 

This space is about the same journey. A journey which, even with all its ups and downs, I have never regretted. Every single turn, diversion and roadblocks have been dear to me. This is a tribute to all those turns and diversions along with each and every co-passenger who accompanied me on this journey during my travel.