Fell deeply in love. So deep, she lost herself.  A raindrop fell into the ocean.

The coming together– The clouds darkened in the horizon. A stillness pervaded the valley. Flashes of lightning followed by a distant thunder. And the skies opened up. She fell. In almost literary abandon. Down, down, down. Until she saw the vast midnight blueness open up before her eyes. The mysteries beckoned. She couldn’t arrest her fall. She just plunged on until… Until she touched the coolness, calmness of the ocean surface.  The ocean opened up it’s heart for her to enter. Invitingly, almost like welcoming a guest home.

The raindrop went in and explored. Shiny white pearls hidden in oyster shells, glittering coral reef, even mermaids in briefs—a whole kingdom of activity. Enchanting. Sexy. Enlightening. The raindrop had never seen anything like it. The ocean bed was so fascinating she shed her inhibitions and went swimming in all directions– exploring, discovering and enjoying. There were zillions of other drops like her in the bosom of the ocean, just like her– exploring and discovering but she didn’t mind. She was caught up in the mysterious depths of the ocean’s bed.

The ocean said to her, “Come, let me show you some distant possibilities. Come with me I want to take you on a trip.”

She went with him. He took her gently along. And then the shores loomed up before them. The ocean generated a force from within itself and took her closer to the shores in paroxysms of ecstasy. She touched the shores again and again and she could see what he meant by distant possibilities. Exhilarating. She lost touch with reality.

But could this last? Or was it just a fleeting fantasy?

The raindrop tried to come to terms to what was happening to her. She realised how there were forces at play that made her drop to the ocean floor in the first place. Forces she couldn’t reckon with. Forces that were at play since time immemorial. An  earthly pull. An imaginary force to explain it. A scientific phenomenon. She however couldn’t understand the gravity of it.

She almost wanted to nestle into the ocean’s bosom, wanted to discover more of what he had to show but…there were other forces at play. Forces she couldn’t reckon with. Forces that were at play since time immemorial. A heavenly pull. A real attraction. A natural phenomenon. She couldn’t stay any longer, she was caught in a cycle. The Sun in the sky was too prominent. Shiny hot, aggressive and constant. Promising light and warmth. Like home and hearth.The raindrop rose into the air. Vaporised, and began its journey upwards.In its dreamy state, in love once more.The ocean let it go.Almost a wry smile on his face. But a little emptied of love in its bosom. A small little hole in his heart.Waiting for another season. Another day. When the cycle of love will precipitate the raindrop back into his heart. So that he can take her to distant shores and open up new possibilities.Knowing fully well that she’ll go again, she’ll not stay. There are always forces at play.

Long time since i penned my thoughts here. Actually the need for blogging is a need for release of the accumulating thoughts in your brain. I have been trying to understand my thoughts and they look like mashed potatoes- without form, figure or taste. I guess i just have to spice it up and serve it to you anyways.

Off-late I have been thinbking about the seeker-mentality. What is it? Is it the natural course of a spiritually maturing human mind? Is it a disease that afflicts middleaged and sometimes even younger individuals? Is it like an excuse to get out of your boredom in life and try to find new challenges? Or is it the confirmation of the fact that you have underplayed your life and not realized your potential? 

When you look at the balance sheet of life there are usually many discrepancies that cannot be explained. Simply because life is not mere mathematics. Sometimes 2+2 makes four, sometimes 22 and sometimes adds up to infinity-that’s life. There are many of us who are trying to add it up to four so that it makes some sense. Some of us are trying to impossibly add it up to 22 and maximize our lives. But some of us, the seekers, are looking for infinite possibilities in the simple addition facts of our life and thus focussing our eyes into the far-out space.

As we seekers (yes, I am one too), focus on the far-out space, we may sometimes think that we have spotted an alien and get all excited or if we are believers, even come to believe that we have seen God. Either way we are labelled delusional. So what do we do if we have a hole in our mind that let’s us see through infinite possibilities? Do we turn a blind eye? Do we go chasing the vision? Or do we wink at the alien and say–”Lage raho, alien bhai! Hum bhi tumhaare saath hain!”

At the risk of sounding delusional lemme say that I have spotted an alien on the horizon. Don’t ask me what he looks like. Ask me rather what he thinks. He thinks i am making eyes at him and I think the same about him too. And with these romantic notions in our head we stare at each other across the space knowing fully well that doomsday is somewhere around the corner and may be then I can escape into his planet or he into mine or just float around in space together picking some stars and putting into my kitty.

I know, i know…you are thinking I am the romantic kind but believe me if you meet me you will find me to be a very well balanced person who has a very down to earth view of the world. But like I said its the seeker mentality in me that gives me ideas which I exhibhit in my poems and stories. History is evidence of the fact that it has mostly been men who have gone out on missions and acheived the impossible. Man wanting to fly, Man on the moon, Man on a mission to mars etc. etc.Well, I want to be the first woman on a mission to find a planet that’s coloured pink, has heart shaped red sattelites, has acres and acres of rose gardens and when we set foot on that planet all we can breathe in the air is romance. 

Don’t laugh. No, it is not all the mills and boons book that i digested in my teens acting up. If you remember, all the heroes in the mills and books were typically tall, dark and handsome. But my hero would be a goggle eyed, green warty alien who only speaks the language of love. Sounds interesting, huh? Watch this space, I may yet write a book about my encounters with the green alien since I know I am only trying to add up my life’s math to infinity. So, Pyaar impossible, impossible, impossible hai pyaar!

The Valentine in You

There was a husband who when returning from work on Saturday evening suddenly remembered that it was valentine day the next day. Of course, he had not bought any gift for his wife of seven years. It suddenly struck him that it has been trying times for him and his wife recently what with money problems and health issues of parents. He thought of his wife and realized that he had not appreciated her unflinching support over the years. So he decided to buy the perfect gift for her this Valentine. After all he had got that promotion and money had started flowing in.

First he entered the jewelry shop. He looked at various rings and tried to decide which one to buy. He couldn’t decide. So he left. Next he entered a clothes boutique and tried to choose a dress that would best suit his wife. Again he couldn’t decide. So he left. Thirdly he entered an expensive lingerie store and tried to pick the sexiest ones he could gift his wife. But again he couldn’t decide and so he left. He thought flowers, chocolates and perfumes but he couldn’t settle on anything. So he came back home empty handed.

All evening he sat wondering what to get his beautiful wife for Valentine’s day. And unknowingly he started watching her go about her work unmindfully. She taught the kids, helped them with their home-work. He noticed that when it came to correcting the math work she got irritated, as if it was too much of a burden trying to calculate all the facts and figures. She got so upset that she started shouting at the kids and asked them to do their own work. She left to do the kitchen work. She was making rotis and she burned her hand slightly but she was cool about it. Then she called the in-laws to eat their dinner. They sat down to eat but finding the vegetable dish a bit cold they complained in a sarcastic, insulting manner. He could see she was hurt and trying to hold back tears. But she just silently took the vegetables back in the kitchen and heated it up. After wards, she sat down to watch TV. She was watching Bollywood songs and she seemed to be enjoying it but the kids came back and demanded to watch cartoon network and she let them. Then the husband and his father watched the news. The kids were asleep by now. She had put them to sleep– telling stories of fairies, kings and queens. So she got back to the TV and started watching new Bollywood releases. The mother-in-law came suddenly and said it was time for her Saas-bahu serial and his wife gave in. She called me for dinner a bit irritated and I remembered how she hated saaas-bahu serials. Then they went to sleep.

Next morning the husband got up early and got ready, took his break-fast and said he had some work in the market and went out. When he came back he had a few packages with him and someone carrying a few big ones too . When his wife asked him what they were he smiled and said, “These are all for you my dear. Happy Valentine’s day!” His wife started opening the packets with some excitement. First she opened a calculator. And she looked at him with a quizzing expression.He said, “For the times when you find it difficult to calculate and correct our kids’ homework.” And she laughed happily. Then she opened one of the big packages. She found a microwave oven. And she said, “Oh, I am so glad. I just hate warming up food on the gas and now it makes things so easy.” Then she opened the next big package and it was a small TV. And she got a little irritated. “Why do we need another TV?” she asked. “So that you can watch all those Bollywood programmes without being interrupted by the kids or parents.” And he saw tears in her eyes. Then in the end he pulled out one small package from under his jacket and extended it towards her. She took it with trembling hands and tore off the wrapper carefully. Seeing a diary she looked at him puzzled. “So that you can write down all your troubles when I am not around to notice and then I would know exactly what other gifts to buy you every Valentine day.” She gave him a hug and cried inconsolably.

Lesson to be learnt: Becoming aware of what problems the partner is going through in his or her current life is the best way to help you select the best gift for them this Valentine. And if you still fail to pick up the perfect gift that would make her happy then give her a diary, talk to her and really listen or  open up a  blog account for her and read her blogs carefully! It might just help you get to know her better.

Who are we? Are you turned off by the question or turned on? If it is the former then I think you are in the original thinking mode and on the contrary if you are not interested then you bet you are in the follower mode-the active one. And if you don’t care, you are in a third category of the passive follower

Yes, we are alternately in the original thinking mode and in the follower mode. In the original thinking mode we hit upon an idea, meditate on it, research and find out the principles behind its working and then we conjure up an idea as to how to improve it. So we may be the scientist in the lab or the housewife in the kitchen but we are trying to learn and improve. How about the follower mode? In such a state we surrender, we flow with the current; we let the universal rules take over and apply themselves. We may be thinking, absorbing and learning but we are not trying to change.

So there we are. What, in your opinion, is the better mode? Original thinkers are the ones who understood the principles of man’s existence in this world and worked upon improving it. They introduced farming, industrial revolution and if that’s too much to comprehend then let me tell you they were the ones who came up with the butter-chicken recipe. Where as the followers, just believed what they said and learned the techniques and followed. But there must have been feeble protests from some followers. They did not want to change. They said change is not always for the better. Let’s simply stay where we are and let the universe unfold itself to us. Mind you, nobody listens to all those passive voices. We only listen to rhetoric. And we suffer from the mob mentality—what the mob do, we do. Here again, I want to clarify that we could alternately be in the original thinking mode or the follower mode.

So which is better? If you are an original thinker living in the present world then you may be working on saving the world, studying global warming or exploring man-machine interfaces(is that what it is called?) or any such relevant topic and trying to think up ideas to apply it now, now, now. You’ll use energy savers, switch off appliances when not in use and still wonder where the solution to the problem lies. On the other hand, if you are a follower(in your present state) you would listen, learn and possibly apply what you have learnt but you are not thinking how to save the world. Some followers are saying- let it be, it’s the universal law acting on us. We are doomed. We’ll die — those are the feeble, passive voices we are not listening to. So in what mode are you?

There are two very basic factors which limit all kinds of human beings –selfishness and short-sightedness. So even if you are an original thinker trying to save the world or a follower trying to live and let live then you suffer from the above mentioned limitations still. You may end up saving the world for another billion of years or you may perish in the next Tsunami but you’ll never know what fruits your action bears. When they introduced farming, they believed they were helping mankind—today, land and forests are being cleared and exploited for farming. When they introduced the industrial revolution they believed they were advancing—today pollution and global warming are major health and environmental hazards. We aim, we focus and we grab our share of the world. Is everything okay with that kind of attitude?

What are the feeble, passive voices saying? Let it be. Surrender. Accept the way of nature and submit yourself to its methods. If anyone can save us from destruction for the next hundred, million, billion years it is the original thinkers. They are already saying a few things- Give. Give back to mother nature what you have taken from it and save—save whatever resources you have for as long as you can. And the followers are trying to follow the leaders. The circus is on!

My question to all the readers of my blog is this. Can man rise above his innate limitations? Can he be selfless? Can he have far-sightedness into the distant forever future? If yes, then why? Just to live a few more years? To play God on earth? There are no written rules to the game of life. Each one of us has their own truths and each one plays the game according to his rules. The anarchy of our minds cannot have one God or one Love or one World. That is the price we pay for freedom.