Life with an Angel

Ryan was travelling to India on a business trip and she was staying home with Angel for 2 weeks.

Angel had been the centre of her universe ever since she came into this world and she thought she knew her like nobody else. But this brief period of solitude and proximity brought out a facet of Angel and their relationship - one she had never envisaged.

Who said kids were too young to understand? Angel did. She on ocassion stepped into the role of a caretaker and a friend. She held her mom's hand through the night and snuggled into her like she was promising to never let go. She had become a mature, caring 3-year old adult with a mind of her own. Angel had always been different from the average kids her age. She'd always seemed more "in control"; though on occassion that freaked her mom out.

While she loved the warm comfort and easy relationship they shared, she kind of missed her little angel. The one that is supposed to be stubborn, relentless, noisy and crazy. As their days together passed like a magnificent dream, she dreaded having to start Angel in school and having to let her go into the proverbial 'big bad world'.

Being a mom had taught her two very important lessons - Loving unconditionally and Letting go. But this wasn't going to be easy. After all, Angel was her most coveted treasure and the answer to all her doubts.

Lonely nights

As darkness creeped through the windows,

And silence spread all over

She lay on the bed and wondered,

If time could go any slower

She reached out for his pillow,

To touch his handsome face

He wasnt there and she knew it,

But her heart was set ablaze

She laid out her dreams and memories,

To fill the void she felt

But every time she reminiscenced him,

She thought her heart would melt

She'd gotten so close to him,

In a way she had never dreamed

And his presence had become vital,

In a way it had never seemed.

10 simple things that she termed "BLISS" (in no particular order):

Waking up and snuggling back for a few mins

Sipping coffee (especially on a foggy winter morning)

Long, hot bath with bubbles and aromatic oils in the dim light of scented candles

Talking to her good friends (especially on the phone) - She believed that voice conveyed as much emotion as sight or touch

Reading a romantic novel/watching a mushy movie with a bucket load of buttered pop-corn

Dancing bare feet to a heady tune

Scanning through old stuff and running into something that holds a warm memory and makes her heart smile.

Eating pani-puri on the busy streets of Hyderabad

Getting a massage with the sound of flowing water in the background

Playing with kids (her own and others too)

Truly, life's simple pleasures are the most joyful and addictive ones. So long !

Random recollections

fg

Its strange how life is often just an accumulation of a series of occurrences. Some of them clogged, crowded and filled with activity. Some others quiet, serene, packed with pauses even vague silence(s). In moments of retrospection, life frequently flashes like a camera film with images some colorful and busy and other just plain gray.

Often we fill our lives with so much activity, sights and sounds that there is seldom room for tranquility. We even make a super human effort to fill dire and awkward silences with words and chatter. We crave the clamor and action. Yet there are times when we yearn for a few moments of peace and calm and find innate joy in solitude.

There are times when 24 hours in a day seem too little to finish our to-do list. Like we have so much to do and there's so little time left. Yet there are times when we stand and watch and life just passes by. Its exquisite how these extreme experiences encapsulate the essence of Life.

A walk down memory lane.....

Those were the days. The days when hanging out, chilling, partying, gifts, movies, crushes, eating out, fun and well if you stretched it a little, exams and marks were the gamut of words that pretty much summed up her life's vocabulary.

They were a gang of four. Krish, Heather, Sam and her. Sam's parents lived out of town. So, he'd rented a studio during his college days and that was their den. They cooked, sometimes ordered in, hung out, played dumb charades, attempted to combined study, teased each other and had a field day. Any restaurant or bakery that came up within a 5 mile radius of their college could be rest assured of their first customers. They could have rephrased the phrase 'Leaving no stone unturned' to 'Leaving no place unvisited'. They had grown together as individuals.

As she reflected on their present she realized that they'd come a long way. How their lives had changed and though they kept in touch how it would never be the same again. That realization made those memories all the more priceless and indispensible. She would give anything to go back and be the

Pain - A very intense 4 letter word

dss


While driving to the shopping mall one weekend she happened to be listening to an assorted collection of songs from the recent past on her car stereo. One very meaningful song particularly caught her attention. It was rendered in the deep, mellifluous voice of Rahat fateh ali khan for the movie 'Namastey London'. She was pretty sure Javed Akhtar had penned the lyrics for it. The 2 lines that she particularly loved went like this :

"Kehne ko saath apne ek duniya chalti hai, Par chupke is dil mein tanhai palti hai".....

It was a very haunting composition. She couldn't help thinking about it for days. The intricate meaning captured in those 2 simple lines was overwhelming. She recollected Charles once mentioning : 'Many things in this life are to be done alone. One of them is living'.

She wasn't too sure she got it then but 4 years hence she probably did. Loneliness is a seldom a choice. Especially in pain. But at the end of the day, Pain is personal. Nobody can fathom the depths of your pain; nor can they share it. It is yours to endure and emerge from. But one thing she knew. It made her a more spiritual person. She hoped to be a stronger, more independent and self-sustained individual. It sure was liberating to depend on self for answers rather than look in directions that provided none. She was evolving - one tiny step at a time. And now she firmly believed that 'Some battles in life are yours to fight and no one else partakes in them'. But again 'Whats life without its fair share of twists and turbulences'?

As she pondered on that thought, another very poetic paradox struck her :

"Rishta aisa hona chahiye, jo humein apna maan sakey,
Hamare har dard to pehchan sakey.
Chal rahein ho agar hum tez baarish mein bhi,
Woh pani mein se aansoo ko pehchan sakey".

P.S : Here's a link to the song that started it all:
Main Jahaan Rahoon - Namastey London

- So long......

A symphony called Childhood!!

jk

Childhood is truly a perfect symphony of innocence and simplicity. She often wondered what the world would be like if people continued to be child-like all their lives. Always spoke the truth, looked at the world with trusting eyes, did what pleased their hearts without having to worry about the rest of the world and most necessarily found joy and contentment in simple things in life. The world would have either been a paradise where all was perfect or it would have been in complete turmoil with everything spinning out of control. Nonetheless, she knew that nothing kindled more faith and hope than looking into the soulful, trusting eyes of an innocent child.

She often wished that she could travel back in time and be the carefree little girl she once was with no agendas, no ambitions, no expectations, no responsibilities and no sense of propriety. Where the endless blue sky waited with open arms to engulf her flight, where the earth always had the fragrance of the first spells of rain, where the wind hummed a celestial tune, where the valley of flowers was always in full bloom, where the deep blue sea had a mystery world within and the starlit night sky was nothing but home to a million glow-worms. She found it amazing how people found other avenues that were more attractive and alluring than these incredible mysteries of nature, once they grew up.....

Maybe that's why it is said that "Childhood often holds a truth in its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain". So, there are only two lasting bequests one can hope to give their children. One is roots, the other is wings.