I have been going through a writer’s block. Not exactly, but kind of. I even tried to write for prompts. I did. But what came out of it was not mine. And now, It is important I get over it before I am taken over. This has started to set pauses in abrupt places and abrupt times. What I mean to say is I needto get over it. And I have been looking for a solution to this pause for quiet some time now. I have tried quiet a number of things.

Different things work for different people at different junctures in life. Sometimes sitting in the dark with all the lights off and all the thoughts on, can make the difference. Sometimes, a walk down the street clicks it right.. Sometimes talking it out with a friend sets the ball rolling… Its not about how it comes to you, but what comes to you.. So here is what happened this morning that broke the trail of silence and the writer’s block I was going through.

I was sipping coffee, reading a newspaper. My neice sat right across the table with her head bent on paper, sheilding it with an elbow, making twirls and swoops, like a sculptor carving a pattern in a piece of wood.. I saw her. How content she was. All into it. With a satisfied look on her face. She randomly picked crayons, color after color and fill those random figures without trying to make some sense out of whatever she was scribbling for almost half an hour. And then she was done.

“See what I have for you Mama. This is exclusively for you. My best sketch ever.”

I smiled back and had a look at it. It was a design! A design, free of a structure, but beriboned with hope and a statement of content.

“Do you like it.” – she asked.

“Of-course I do darling.”

“Its wonderful. Thank you for this my pancake” – I said in validation.

This small event registered its existence on my mind as one of the not so common ones. I will tell you how. Her expression in the drawing was an open one. It said a great deal about what was going through in her mind when she drew it. Nothing held her back from choosing or picking a layout that was not contemporary. And that I realize is so important sometimes.

Life is a basket of crazy loaves and fishes. I believe I too have yielded to the pressure of not sharing certain things with people around in my life, bent under the weight of compromised value, or fear or shame or plain anger or even a common happy feeling for that matter. Such things just go unrecognized most of the times. And there have been things I have wanted to write and talk about. Lots of it. Yet I have often held back quiet a lot of it to myself. As a result of it some of these moments; the happy ones I mean, I dont even register, even when I talk about such things to people. And then there are some really difficult things which we quiet love to overlook and not talk about. But here its not that. Or atleast its not just that. I have tried a lot of things myself. I have stayed away from a lot of thoughts for a lot of reasons. But if you ask me if that sorted it out. I  don’t think it did. But yes some meager minor ones, do lose their ground with time.

Spilling the beans, if you ask my mom, I used to be a quiet agressive and a short tempered boy Prolly now that a look back at it, I find that a lot of things, that voted for the rage and agression was borne of the fact that I would not take them easy, talk it easy or live through it. Fortunately things have changed. And now, what often works for me is the fact that I can talk easy about things without a hint of anger or despair. I can let go of it and choose to accept it as they are. The transformation to this composed self has taken its own seasoning time. I realze that the absence of this balance is capable of making you more inward, which I think is quiet dangerous and at times also evil. It makes people implosive.

When I started to write, i wrote through a lot of what I was going through; lay it open, with all its beautiful scars and smooth round stones, among the jagged ones made my life through it all the more smooth with violets tucked against the brambles. Then I shared it with people around. They loved what I wrote. And that took me captive. Selfish it may be, you start to write for pleasure that people seek out of your expression; which is quiet capable of losing the expression to the glamour of the expression. Whereas the idea is to of lose it to the people. Whatever whenever expressed openly makes the cram unnecessary and the expression easy. I feel it is more important to express what is, than to try and work past the logjam waiting to overcome all the hurdles and bridges or get hitched by glamour of the expression for that matter. I have been waiting to freely express for once, than embroider words into my writing. What I want to say is that I can spread reasons out in my mind but unless they are out on the table it can be difficult to arrange them into something harmonic. Something sensible. Something justified.

Whatever my niece had come up with was an important message, to let it loose and enjoy the confidence of letting it let loose, rather than to brood over it for what is and what is not, or even yearn for perfection for that matter. The idea is set it free. So well I don’t care anymore what I write. I just will write. I just did.

A sparrow in my hand
was about to squeak.
As I caress its body
and polish its beak.

In an uncertain confine
as it waits for a name
In a voice familiar
that in a call never came

Thoughts stashed.
Fears unsaid..
Words smashed
With a feel embed.
Within what lies
In a colored balloon
lead it up in the skies
To reach the moon..
….
….
And as it goes
Up in the air
The clime around
Is its biggest scare
But scare is not
What leads it right
The air within
Still wants to fight
To fight a war
A fight unto death
CONTAIN… COMPLY..
Till the air bequeath!

In an adhoc response to a post..

Wrapped against the chill
Of an early morn…
Speechless….
He stared at her!!
Her silent composure
did confirm…
That the bond
She will honor…

It was a moment to capture indeed…
That, the sun did quickly click…
Sending the doves to spread the charm..
So that others live the same magic…

A figure shot passed;
On a pebbled beach.
Fueled in fire;
Out of my reach.

Seized in dark
I fade… You Be..
We are not two
You are but me..

Wondering.. Wandering..
As you go.
To learn…
Unlearning curve…

Each nook and corner;
that you find,
Find patterns..
And OBSERVE…

So pick and chose.
What you live
And leave…
There is more life ahead.
There are….
Many incarnations to take..
Before…
We are actually dead.

Halted somber and a gloomy look!!
I hate it when I see….
In whitish blanket.. Sacked in pillows
Even the thought is scary to me

So get up well and dance a dream
Like a dream that was for true
Do some magic bits you love
Till that happy smile finds you

And thats the vision about you i have
Which dont you try to change!!
With golden captures more reel we ll spend
And have everything for you arranged!!

—
For a friend I recently visited

You may have heard people say I love him/her more than anyone else. You cant do much about that comparative statement. You see people coining it every now and then. But…. Love cant be measured. It is the context you define and the one that contains it. You may inhale exhale the very existence of this definition in your life but the reprimand is two-fold. To love. And to be loved.

You may chose to believe whats more important in the whole process. You may chose to say its your feelings. But its only the choice that we prioritize and chose to make the focal point of our perspective. There is more to it. What brings to us in any perspective we chose, is just a view of how we see life and everything around it. It may and may not be the same. An analysis to that level prolly makes life seem more arranged, more contrived, more unreal.

What is engineered in the learning unlearning process is not an instrument, not a flute, but the melody. A melody that drives us like Krishna drove the herd. It is magical and we get led into it. Some play it good. Some play it bad. Some are extraordinary. This again is subject to who tunes and connects to what. Its a choice we make. Something that is phantasmagorically beautiful the previous moment, transitions to clouded visions the next moment. What will explain that? It is about how we suit ourselves with our presets in those containers. We change. We grow. We move on. We seek.

What I happen to realise is that prolly its just a vibrant balanced journey that we seek. Once you find someone who strikes the balance for you, is prolly a soul-mate but that still doesnt make him/her a champion musician who would strike the same chords again and again. There may be variations and thats where i see ripples arise. I also accept variations with too much of love would constrain it; too much of care would make it clingy; too much of protection transitions to possessiveness. But love is prolly a chaos with some method to madness. It is not a mission. It has no set objectives. Being a human, I also cant say its self-less. It is anything, but un-understood realisation of a seeking that is still to be achieved. Once achieved, its compromised. Its a goner. I believe the madness should prevail. That keeps it going.

So all I would pray is keep seeking, get seeked and enjoy the melody that is played for you. Freedom is no freedom. Its a curse!

Today I had a good conversation with a friend of mine sipping coffee. With valentines day just passing by, what better topic would it be other than love and how it affects our lives. After some discussion we sidelined impersonal love for a moment and chose to limit our scope to interpersonal love. We were wondering what makes it happen? And how long will it last? Why we are so psychologically dependent on that kind of love? And how we try to judge it every now and then?

You ll find a lot many who believe their love will never fade and also many who would claim there is no such thing called love. Whatever choices we make and chose to believe are based on our history of educated guesses from our past experiences; conscious and sub-conscious ones. Lets blanket this aside for a moment. The word love itself can have various interpretations with distinct meanings in different contexts. And nature of love is a topic of an unended debate and also a frequent one. What most interests the debaters is when it comes to whether its a mamillian drive similar to hunger or thirst or its a cultural need and social phenomenon; or rather something else may be.

Dictionary says – Love can be aroused as physical attraction & need and it can lead to emotional bonding and vice versa.

As a cultural shift, its more likely to take a physical to emotional route these days. Greeks put it in different senses agape and eros. Where agape is the ‘love of the soul’, eros is the ‘love of the body’. Agape is regardless of the parameters and defines, of what the one you love should do or does. Its more of an obsession and passionate liking. Everything else is demeaned in the process. Whereas eros is about physical interaction and beauty that feeds the fuel of burning passion. It is however difficult to separate one from the other. Hindus have it clearly defined as kama and prem. Like Bhagwad Geeta puts it kama is about bhog.. and prem is about yog. Radha’s love for Bhagwan Krishna was yog and Krishna’s love for his eight wives are examples of bhog.

Like hindus, ancient romans(latins) focus more on love with interpersonal persepective. Significance of love in their culture is very noticeable. If you notice Rome(roma) is an anagram for amor which means sensual passionate love and romance. In Ars amatoria(The art of love) Ovid covers all kinds of love. He has also written a guide to dating (This will be an interesting find for many Go read!!  http://tkline.pgcc.net/PITBR/Latin/ArtofLoveBkI.htm ) The chinese see it as confucianism and mohism(universal love). This gets interesting on how we found it. It so happened that we were talking, while a chinese fellow was sitting next to us who got interested and joined us in the conversation. He said love(ai) in their roots is considered a serious thing; he would prefer to say i love you to his girlfriend rather than the same in mandarin(wo ai ni). If he had to say it in traditional chinese language he would prefer using it in a lighter context “wo xiuan ni” which means I like you.

Now while conversing what kept coming to us unanswered was how do we know when a love is pure love for the soul or just love for the body. And how can we determine how long it will last, if its love for the body, it may fade away sooner or later, which is a big concern to all the couples out there, who are yet to solidify the bond and also those who are ringed together, but are concerned and scared to death with thoughts that their partner may indulge in extra-marital affairs. It boils down to question of trust. I have seen some people who would just breach the unset norms in the shadow of their possessiveness and being protective. Americans, are the best of the lot when it comes to dissolved boundaries. They are capable of falling in love again and again They have an average rate of marriage vs divorce ratio as 2:1, whereas indians and some other communities, see it as a life long attachment.

We listed that are three ways love usually happens. It can be through companionship, it can be passionate love(the concept of soulmates) or it can be just physical need. Now at first instance, it is very difficult to draw line between the second and the third. Say for eg. You see someone at some random place, and that very instant you feel the connection. You feel something magical happening. You say to yourself – This is the one. Just a gaze from them is enough to ignite your senses. But if this happens to you seeing every girl/boy now and then then most likely its the third one. Now, coming back to first type, this one we see we happening around us so often. You ll find kids falling to this type in schools, colleges and your colleagues offices. What is strikingly strange is that once the couple is subjected to different environments the love magically vanishes the same way it magically started for them

It is often noted that the psychological need has a big share contributing, which transforms into need and finally into physical need. The transition and the shares may differ, case to case and also how the two sexes involved see it. Where girls from a not so rich background, opt more for a relationship based on psychological need; girls from a fairly rich background seek the physics, chemistry and biology of it. However, it also noticed that girls get attracted more to guys, with an adventurous, carefree life with a harley davidson and a rockstar profile. Across the table all agreed to this These so called bad guys are not so faithful like those with the nice guy syndromes but they still win the battle…eventually lose the war but how is that different with the nice guys. As opposed to the same concept, we laughed at how the nice guys are not so nice. They can be more shrewd strategists. Its a long debatable topic, with different opinions and their containers. So after a long debate, we finally agreed that universal truth is – Girls like the bad guys nevertheless …. prolly because, rude or whatever they are, they are very honest in their approach but ruthless in their behaviour. And emotions and tears drive these nuts madly, but sadly they get sacrificed in the process.

We shifted our focus to more leading question “How do we know this is longterm. This is the kind of love we want to seek lifelong.” And what we found us was this

Love is not just about falling in love. Its about falling in love again and again. Just like you want to have sex again & again. The objectives may be different and so may be the chemistry, but the physics of premise is the same. Ideally, it is about falling in love with the same person over and over, rather than falling out of love and falling for someone else again. Many marriages miss the intimacy in their love for each other and lose out for the same reason. In words often heard it is “it becomes mechanical”. Years of courtship and romance cannot guarantee this. It only happens if they believe in one another blindly. Prolly thats why they say – Love is blind!

Easily explained, It is free from the constraints of unrequited love. Its like even the usual monotony can feel like contentment – a complete relish at the end of the day, if things are lined up fine. And it doesn’t take much long, to find out that mere passion, which sides around sexual gratification, is not sufficient in itself to build a long-lasting relationship. I have seen guys talk about their companionship and how it is stimulated by all the five senes. Smells good, feels good, tastes good, sounds good and looks good. And they seem to have a perfect pleasant company, that makes em feel HAPPY. Still this doesnt last so long, It doesnt always withstand the pressure of time. It gets seized. As we grow, we grow out of this love, rather than growing with it, or growing in it. As we grow, there are changes and some are about lifestyle and thinking, some are about needs and concerns but somehow they believe, they feel, it has reached an end. Thats where both the parties move on in different directions. It has trouble maturing into “Forever”. Forever is prolly not forever anymore. Or may be it never was. Its just a lose term may be. Having talked about that, just for a moment stop and think. it has happened to most of us. Isnt it? and we moved on…

However, in the “love for a soul” or what we know as agape, from greeks; it has no set qualifications. It has no restraints. It doesnt say – if you do this i ll love you. It doesnt say – you should change this or this should change between us. It has no fine print. You just choose to given in. You choose to accept them the way they are, with whatever they have or dont have. It becomes – “I need you” rather than “You need me”. It doesnt seek gain. It doesnt seek gratification. The pursuit itself is self-satisfying. But this can be a fallacy and delusional at the same time. Aint it? You ll end up writing poems, celebrating your pain.

I believe the more we help our partners achieve their full potential in life, the closer we get to maturity. Its the only sane route. Demonstrating that selfless desire for them to gain, is the strongest base for building lasting relationships. But its most difficult to exercise and it doesn’t come so naturally unless you find the right soul, when Its contentment!