Rumor

Rumor has it
That she has left.
She no longer lives
Where she used to.

Her plants has died
That she took care of.
Balcony is filled with dried leaves
And wind blown scrap

Bills remain unpaid
Groceries uncooked, stale
Calls to her goes unanswered
And messages undelivered.

Nobody knows her story
Or why she left.
What is her pain
And what she suffered.

Rumor has it
That she has left.
Never to be back again.

Accused: not real enough

I am currently caught up in a frenzy of legal jargons like prosecution, defence, deposition, subpoenas, sentence, out of court settlements, guilty or not guilty. All these owing to back to back episodes of 6 seasons of 'Suits' and John Grisham's 'The Rainmaker'.

Started to wonder how many times we get accused in life by friends, best friends,  lover, family, colleagues, acquaintances and strangers of things that we do, we don't and what they think we are. We are often handed out a sentence without the opportunity to build our case and fight it. Getting cold shouldered is an example of this. Judged by people and tried and punished, sometimes all happens so fast and we get served, out of nowhere.

Got served recently by someone extremely close. Accused of being not real enough. It is not the same as being 'unreal' which would mean unbelievable or out of the world! Not real enough would probably mean not genuine enough or not worth anything to be done for you. You are real but sorry not real enough in my life. It is all the same like being accused of a crime, going through a trial unaware and then jolted back to reality when the verdict is out for you. And it is final. Accused of being not real enough. I can't fight my case, and I can't plead not guilty as it is not going to affect the judgement.

So I am going back to the pages of Rainmaker because it is more fair than life. The accused gets time to build a case and  prepare. Plead not guilty. The accused there gets a fair trial.

Sounds of the night.

The night itself is quiet, reserved and eerie.

But the sounds that accompany it are not.

Two kinds.

Dogs barking, the siren of the ambulance, the noise of a car reversing, ticking of the clock, furniture being pushed, rare sounds of a cricket, a train whistling, an owl screeching, wind hitting the windows, a child crying.. The sounds gets magnified in the dark and in the quiet of the night. They come much closer to you as the distance between the sound and you gets lost in the night. But they are tangible in the sense you can unfeel them. They are external noise and can be Ignored or blocked by covering your ears and putting on some music. Or by moving to a high rise apartment. Or by sound sleep.

That was the first kind.

Second kind is internal to you. But these sounds makes the night air heavy. Ecstasy of achieving a long awaited dream, nervousness for a big interview the next morning, disbelief that you have won what you have, travelling excitement, prospects of a new beginning, gratefulness for a second chance, prayers of relief that the battle is over, happiness of having your love by your side.

Wails of the heart for a love that will never be yours to hold, accepting the failure, prayers for the sun not to rise tomorrow, dismay for a lost opportunity, cowardly decision’s voices, dread for the next day at work, cry for that lost friend, sobbing into the pillow to drown that sound, pain that is beyond physical, loss of appetite for life.

The night air is heavy with these sounds when you step out from your room. It seems so quiet and peaceful but it is noisier than the most crowded place you have ever been. The night cannot sleep because of this.

The night is never at peace.

*T&C do not apply

The process of giving and receiving is ancient and exists so intensely in our species. It is dynamic and continuous, each one of us goes through it probably more than ten times in a day. In the corporate world we say, “I scratch your back and you scratch mine”. We give something and we want something in return. We do something for someone and we expect that person to do something similar for us. We are only human, after all. (Courtesy Sierra Noble - Human After All Feat. Michael Logen)

It lies in our core, maybe. As humans, we tend to get attached and expect. To be a giver and not wanting to receive is tough and impractical. You act out of pure love and harboring expectations that person would do something similar is not unreasonable. You receive it, you are happy. You do not receive, it hurts you. Would not it be much easier with no terms & conditions being implied when you are a giver? They say the world is round. So if you keep on giving love, help, blessings, prayers, support, appreciation out to the world, one day it is going to come back to you.

Let us not talk about love here, is it not already complicated enough.

Let us talk about selfless kindness. Or compassion towards our colleagues at work.  Supporting each other without corporate politics involved, without forming lobbies, fulfilling ambitions through sheer honesty and hard (or smart) work.

Let us talk about helping people generally, strangers or acquaintances. No kind deed should be looked upon a favor to be returned at an appropriate time and place. Giving without keeping any hope of receiving is not easy. I try every day and fail maybe 95% of the time. It does not make me selfish, does it? But I do have to make a conscious decision to shake off any anticipation to receive.

At work, I used to often cross paths with an ex colleague. I must have smiled at him every time for almost a month and he never acknowledged or returned it. Then soon I stopped too. At first, deliberately and then it came naturally to me. To look at his eyes and turn my face away, without spending a free smile. Today, I look back and do not see his cold face and I only remember my immaturity. Imagine getting worked up so much for a smile.

Selfless people are great, they have crossed over to the other side. They have understood the meaning of loving without expecting, they sleep better at night and are at peace. Anyone who has a pet dog can understand what I am talking about here. A dog’s affection for his/her master is pure, unrefined and innocent. Can all of us be less like humans and more like dogs?

What a world would this be if every time we give out something, terms & conditions do not apply?

Small acts, small steps. 

To just give without intentions, to just give without limitations.

Quicksand.

It is an emotion, being in quicksand. Slowly and surely, you feel being pulled into it.

Scientifically, quicksand is sand that has absorbed too much water and becomes extremely light. You step on it and it gives way. You will not drown to death; you will only feel like you will. Because the ground below is not infinite and it has a base. If you just remain calm and slowly find your way out of it, you will live.

I guess it is not easy to be calm at that time. Maybe the brain stops working and the logic does not seem logical. Only the ones who have felt it can explain though it is inexplicable. This feeling of drowning into nothingness.

Quicksand is not always a negative state to be in, contrary to what Google says when you search for it. So this might be a different take on the concept. This is the fun about abstract topics; there are always more perspectives than what meets the eye.

You might be drunk on ambition and greed; it pulls you in. it is difficult to stop the craziness, and it is quicksand. It requires the strength and will power to come out of this mad cycle.

You might be in love. You might be losing something or someone. You are experiencing it and not able to take the path which is logical and practical for you. The constant war, the constant debate in your head. Sometimes the pull and the tide are way too strong: quicksand.

I think courage is the key here. Courage does not always mean being not afraid. Or to find the way, to swim to the shore, to fight for what you want. Sometimes courage is also to find the will to stay right at the spot you are, just holding on. You don’t have to wait for help, you just have to hold on. It does not mean you are depending on anything or anyone else to come and find you. It is just enough to just hold on. It is okay.

Quicksand is not a bad place to be. If you happen to be in one, give it a chance. Give yourself the chance to experience it. It might change the whole perspective of life that you had.

The pain of Optimism

Be positive.

Hold on. If you truly want it, nothing is impossible.

Believe in it and it will happen.

Law of attraction works.

When you want something, the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Great thinkers, philosophers and speakers have always focused upon the power of positivity and optimism. Their writings and quotes have inspired millions to get back on their feet and achieve quite difficult dreams and goals. Self help books sales are getting higher each year. Today's world is tough to live in with tougher challenges and tougher aspirations. In such times, staying optimistic is the mantra and is contagious. The more optimistic people are, the better.

I am a firm believer in positivity and am of the notion that everything can be possible if only we can strive towards it. Be it a new challenging work profile or catching an office cab in 4 minutes flat, it can be done if only I try and give it my best. Optimism is like an omnipresent initial feeling about almost everything.

Lately I have been wondering, like everything else , does optimism also has two faces to it in terms of consequences?

You are positive about a dream that you have. A dream that seems impossible to be true. You work towards it and give it your one hundred percent to make it happen. You pray, send out that message to the universe (request it to conspire) and you tirelessly believe in it. But it is a known fact and you know it, it is not going to happen. NO matter how hard you try or how badly you want it, it is just not going to be a reality. 

This is the arrival point of the pain of optimism, and it arrives in full pomp and style.

Being positive pushes you to keep believing in your dream, logic and experience pushes you to give it up. It is a fight between the right and left side of the brain, it is a war between the heart and the mind. But damn, it must be frustrating.

If your core is optimistic and you have never-give-up attitude, you are in for a disaster in such situations. You will be torn. What do you do then? Give up your core and accept defeat in the face of the ruthless realities of life. Or foolishly keep working and hoping and praying that one day, your dream will come true. 

How does one deal with such situations or does one have to deal at all or let life take its course? Let time tell. Just let it be until that precious dream stumble upon realization that it is supposed to remain and disappear in the same form. Allow it to self-subtract and self-destruct.

Poof!

Eventually everything connects

“In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions on which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large difference in a later state”. (Work of Edward Lorenz).

A butterfly flapping its wings in India can cause a hurricane to happen at a later time somewhere in Argentina. If the butterfly had not flapped its wings at a certain point in space/time, the hurricane probably would not have happened at all. This shows the interdependence of different elements in this universe and the connection is real and proved. Everything is connected from the breath of a new born baby to someone falling in love far away. Each person that we meet in the different walks of our life are a part of the plan, each activity of ours leads the story on and connects to make a part of a story of someone else’s life.

Let’s imagine, you missed your usual time route C metro train and had to wait for another 2 minutes for the next one. The train which you missed earlier had a seat which you would have occupied if you had reached on time. This seat which is now vacant was taken by a girl, H, who is not having a very good day and is relieved to find a seat. H had a tough day because she was fired from her temporary position in a company because the permanent employee, A, is back from her maternity leave. H knew she was a temp but was performing well and needed this job badly. A had to fight with her husband, O, and in laws to re-join as they wanted her to be a stay-at-home mom to look after the kid. A has worked hard in her job and her career is a part of who she is. O only wanted A to be at home for some time as he thought it would be good for the baby and had no intention of ruining her career. O himself is having a hard time at office due to lay-offs by his company and his boss, S, might give him the pink slip any time. And guess what? S is you. It is all a part of the big picture.

Who, how and why you meet is pre designed. The three states as a result of the choices that you make (yes/no/neutral) is also pre designed. They say time decides who you meet in life, your heart decides who you want in your life and your behavior decides who stays in your life. The person sitting next to you in a cab can turn out to be your soul mate. Your batch mate in a class of 50 can be the boss for your kid brother. Your best friend of one time can be lost and disappear from your life in a frame of 5 years. God does not play dice and everything is destined to happen, of course depending on what you choose.

“Destiny is the result of the choices that you make in life” And the choice that you have made in the past or are going to make tomorrow is connected to many destinies, yours and others. Nothing happens without a reason and every move you make is moving from one dot to another. Life is a path connecting dots in the canvas, and if we can just peep into it to see the bigger picture, we will realise that eventually everything connects. 

That’s how life happens.