Love aaj Kal

The rose was eight years old. Desiccated, shriveled, devoid of a scent; a mere shadow of itself. Like memories-faded with time. The rose had appeared when he was searching his old diary.

Flow of Memories-As if formed like steam from a pot of boiling water. Produced at once, unconsciously lifting up, and then spreading into the thin air, into the invisible...

The possessor of the rose had held the most important place in his life. That was eight years ago.

“I love you.” He had told her. He was blushing and frightened. His palm was sweating. His heart was palpitating.

Long moments of silence.

“What da?” She looked into his eyes and asked, as if she knew the outcome of this lunch together.As if she expected every man to propose her after few lunches together.

“ I love you Mini. You are the most beautiful woman I have seen in my life.”

She giggled. Her cheeks rosy now out of blushing.

“Sure? How about Aishwarya Rai?” She asked.

“ Ohhh, Common. I haven’t seen her.And she will just pale before you. I swear.”

He was visibly embarrassed now.

“I wish I could enlarge your photograph and post it in my room. Will you give me a photo of yours?”

“I will not give you.” She replied bluntly, though teasingly to reduce the bluntness.

“ Mini. Do you love me?”

Long moments of silence. He was staring at her. She was looking down at the ground.

He left the question unanswered, as if he never expected an answer from her.

The Next six months of life passed, though separated for weeks together and then to see each other on weekends. Daily telephone calls, hours of conversations on mundane of all topics.-Birthdays, childhood, loneliness, future.

He waited for her calls all day, though she called only in the evenings. Everything else was irrelevant in life, except for her smile. Life became a struggle for possession, though all possessions became immaterial. Songs, Music, words, food, phrases had its association with her. The car her family owned became the best car, her favorite food became the tastiest, her cloths became the trendiest,  colour of her skin became the prettiest, her hairstyle the most stylish. He searched the dictionary for the words she used- “how conversant she was”.

“Do I deserve her?” Once he asked himself. The serpent called “self doubt” emerged out of him, for the first time.

He understood new connotations of the word ‘love’-Frustration, resentment.  He loved her like himself, in fact more than himself, because he was not sure if he loved himself so much. He demonstrated his love as a measurable, quantified essence.  He devalued the expectations of reciprocation. Yet he was frustrated. He was too human to understand that true-love was above an expectation of reciprocation. True-love? Was there also an un-true love ?

“You didn’t reply, Mini.” He asked her during a phone conversation.

“What da?”

“I love you so much, I have told you that. I mean it Mini. I love you so much.”He replied, with a tinge of frustration.

“ How much?” She asked giggling.

“Cut that”, He was furious now.

“I don’t know Manoj.” She replied.

“ I need more time.” She replied after a brief silence.

“ How much more Mini. I have waited for so long.What makes you doubt me so much?” He asked.

“ No Manoj. I don’t doubt you.”

“Then? Whats the problem with you?”

“ I don’t deserve you.Manoj.”She replied.

“ WHAT? What makes you say that?”

“You are good. You would get someone really good.”

“ You are the best. I want you. There is noone good enough for me. Its you, Mini. I love you. You are the best,Mini” He spoke with calmness, with a saintly composure..

Long silence.

“ Can I trust you Manoj?” She asked.

“ Yes, Mini. Please. All I want in this world is you. Nothing more.Trust me!” He replied.

She opened her heart to him.

“ I can never imagine getting married to anyone else Manoj. I love him.”

“ But he used you. He used you and dumped you for someone else Mini.Still?” He asked.

She smiled. He could hear her chuckle. He wondered why? Do women smile overly when they are hurt-“ Tum Itna kyon Muskurarahe ho, Kya gam hein jisko chupa rahe ho?”  “How true?”

“ We made it twelve times a day once.” She told him once, after a few weeks, during a lighthearted conversation.

He pretended indifference. His heart was on fire.

“ He used me Manoj.All he wanted was my body. And all those words and promises had no value.”

“ I love you Mini. All men are not the same. I respect women. I hate men who look at women as an object of desire. I seriously hate such men.” He replied.

He knew he meant every word he had spoken. In fact, he had spoken only half of what he had meant; only if words had the power to expose hearts. Bloody words!

She smiled.

“  I don’t know Manoj. You will get a good girl. Much better than me. And then you would think of all this as a joke. A big joke.”She giggled.

“ Stop It, Mini. I love you. I can never love anyone the way I love you. I will only love you. Only once in my life.” He replied, distraught now for being made to repeat.

Frustrations mounted with the passage of time. His heart bled bloodlessly. It ached unsettlingly. World stopped to amuse him. Nothing else mattered but her.  Her attention was everything. He was starved of her. The woman dumped by another man; used as his object of desire. A woman who had no place in that man’s heart. And he was starved of her love. How strange is this world? Someone else’s trash is another mans aspiration.

“ Keep this rose. This is to remind you of me. Otherwise you will forget me in no time.” She said chuckling, her last words to him.

Climbing the train, he turned to look at her once again, knowing that this would be the last time he would see her. “A lifetime of not seeing her. Forever of not seeing her. Will never see her again in my life.”  Very Heavy words filled with sadness.

“What are you staring at?” A feminine voice stirred him back to present.

“ Nothing. A Rose. I was wondering how it came here?”He turned to look at his wife.  

“Must have been given by some girl. Isn’t it? The way you were staring at it.” She said teasingly.

He smiled at her. She smiled back. He could never lie to his wife. He was plain incapable of doing it. If she would have probed into his past he would have revealed everything. But she never bothered herself.

He looked at his wife; that beautiful smile of her. Brown eyes, lovely poise. “Could he live a day without her?”.

A woman who presented herself to him. A woman who gave him innumerable joy of a life time; in just a few years. A woman who gave him a beautiful daughter whom he could call his. A new dimension to life. A new rationale to life.  A life with a direction and speed limit.

“ Keep that flower back inside the diary or throw it. The pollen could cause allergy to her.” His wife said, directing towards his sleeping one year old daughter.

He crushed the rose in his palm and threw into the thrash bin. He walked to his wife and hugged her-she struggling to come out of his embrace.

“ Go away, the baby would awake.” She said teasingly.

He looked once again at the thrash bin.

“And then you would think of all this as a joke. A big joke.” He grinned as if realizing the essence of a joke.

                                                                                           

                                                                                                              

back to normal

Hi, I am out of depression and back to being myself. Thanks to one and all for showing concern and valuable comments....Will come back to read your blogs and write more . Just let me be out of this mess called boss's country visit coming Thursday.Until then Take good care of yourself and ciao.

Please checkout this video untill i return to this space.....

depression

I am back to being depressed…I doubt if I have clinical depression, which is thought to be a mental illness. I am sure I need to get my head serviced…But having said that, I somehow, in a strange sometimes-you-love-things-you-hate-the-most way, love being depressed. Being depressed makes me self centered. It makes me feel that my happiness and out-of-depression is the most important thing in life. It makes me empathize with people who are deeply depressed and are contemplating suicide.

When I am depressed I am reminded: “death is the ultimate truth, an inevitable part of life and is in its own way a moment to rejoice”. It makes me restless. No amount of sleep makes me rested; I still look tired and restless. At least my eyes say so.

It makes me theoretical. I see being part of the cosmos. I feel I have been in existence all throughout and would continue to live through infinity.May be as a stone, or dust.

 When depressed, things like money or wealth cease to hold their perceived significance. The feeling sinks that no amount of wealth can bring that feeling of security in my life. I start to wonder if true happiness is a feeling of security ? Why do I feel so insecure? Why do I feel as if I have no-one? Will more wealth bring more security? Will I need body guards, to prevent depressions from grabbing me?

Another interesting feeling when depressed is the feeling that world has no future. It feels as if world would end very soon, perhaps due to our own actions. World would have no petrol in next fifty years. We would have no water to drink, some nuclear power would attack another nuclear country. World would not hold for more than a hundred years. It all would end very soon. Yes, Depression makes me think this way, though rationale says otherwise.

But the worst feature of being depressed is the feeling that I am worthless. I am insignificant. Each of the nearly 6 billion humans are important to the world, except me. I feel as if noone loves me or is concerned about me. Everything is just a big, well scripted drama.  Everyone has fractional memories, noone has time for me.I am just a part of a huge crowd, moving in certain path, though purposeless and devoid of any motif.  

Am I the only one who gets depressed on and off?or am i too open and over-honest in admitting? Does it happen to you as well? Or am i passing through mid-life crisis?

The neighborhood woman

He sat on a fiber chair in the Veranda reading newspaper. His wife was somewhere in the house, perhaps in the kitchen, and his one year old daughter slept on the floor next to him. In ten minutes he was through with the newspaper.

He was four days into his ten day vacation. His eyes panned the houses in front of him. The freshly painted house on the right  caught his attention. He remembered the conversation his mother had with him the previous night.

“Ohh, You should have been here last year.”

His mother was explaining the events which took place six months ago.

“ God always snatches people he loves the most.” She had said.

“Babu wouldn’t be more than thirty. Only two months into the marriage and this tragedy. You should see his wife Reena: how young and beautiful.”

Mother's description of beauty didn’t register in him, he was used to her exaggerations. The magnitude of the tragedy was enormous no doubt. “Just two months into marriage”. He repeated his mother’s dialogue in his mind.

“Lucky they didn’t have babies.Two months is enough to have a baby.” He thought.

He remembered, his cousin sister had delivered nine months into her marriage. “Perhaps she conceived the very first night of the marriage.They would have hooked-up the very night.” He had thought when he heard the news, though with guilt of having thought like that about his sister.

He could hear some movements in the house. May be it was Reena. Now he wanted to have a glimpse of her, just to confirm his mother: Or perhaps sadistic wish of examining the victim of such a grave tragedy.

He thought if she would remarry. “ How young and beautiful” His mother recurred in his mind. “A young and beautiful woman would have no problems  finding a mate. She would have her bodily desires too.” He couldn’t control his monologues.

“ Would she have experienced the bodily pleasures of mating?”.

“Two months into marriage!”

“Their's was love marriage. Inter-religious marriage. She is a Christian. God knows why most such marriages end in tragedy?” His mother had said, with visible signs of distress.

He wondered if mother secretly supported god’s decision of breaking such marriages.

“ They were on his motor cycle. Reena was behind. A fast bus was approaching on the opposite and there, they are hit.” He remembered his mother.

“ He died on the spot.” Mother had explained, as if it was a big feat to die like that.

“ She too was almost dead. We thought she too had. They took her to TMH and from there to the medical college. She came out of the coma after three weeks.four weeks in the ICU.”

“Poor girl. She couldn’t even witness the funeral of her husband.” His mother said. His mind made classifications of death. Not-conscious-to-witness-the-funeral-of-husband could be the worst degree of loss.

"We couldn't control her after she got her consciousness. " Mother had narrated. "She wanted to die. She was saying she has no reasons to live. Her reason for living way no more."

"We stopped her somehow. It was very difficult. I told her that she can consider her her mother and live with her. Like my daughter. " "Poor Girl".

He wanted to see her. His curiosity was mounting. “ Beautiful woman and a widow of two months of marriage. Not seen funeral too. How tragic.” He wasn’t sadistic, but he felt like one.He wondered if it was natural to have such thoughts. Was he turning into a psycho?

He walked towards the house.

A young woman greeted him on the doorsteps. He smiled at her. She returned his smile with a half lipped grin.

“Reena?” He asked.

She smiled in reply.

“ Please be seated.” She said courteously.

He sat on a cane chair.

“ I am Lakshmi Chechi’s Son.Manoj” He introduced himself.

“I know. Heard about you from Chechi.”

“ I will make tea.”

Before he could stop her she had left. He was stunned by her beauty, a real beautiful woman by any standards-Fair, Tall, Slim and graceful.

“Sexy”, if he could call her. He wanted to call her. A woman he would be proud to have as wife. A woman his friends would be envy of.  A woman who could provide all sorts of pleasures to a man. A man could never ask for more than a woman like her. He imagined her sleeping on a bed. He could spend hours staring at her. He wanted to look at her, for long moments, secretly, without her finding out.

She walked in with a tea cup.

“How is Divya chechi?” She asked.

“ She is doing good.”

“ How long is the vacation.”

“ We would travel next week”.

“ So chechi is traveling with you?”

He nodded. He was shy. He couldn’t look into her eyes. He felt awkward and uncomfortable.

He wanted to getup and walk back.

He passed the teacup to her.

“Potte.” He said( in Malayalam for “ Let me go”)

She smiled.

“ We will come later.Do come there. Divya said Hi.”

She smiled again.

Walking back he imagined her with her husband on a motorcycle. Her hands had clutched him from behind. She was whispering something into his ears and he was chuckling, very much in Love-Like Some condom advertisement on the TV.

He felt a desire for her. He wanted to be her man; he wanted her touches, her soft caresses on the motorcycle, she biting his ears out of love and bodily lure. Like the condom advertisement.

He felt envious of Babu. “Lucky man.A beautiful wife. A desirable woman. Enough to pass envy to any man.”
He was in love with her, whatever the word meant.

That night, sleep couldn’t get to him easily. He looked at his daughter sleeping next to him and his wife, sleeping further next to his daughter. His daughter formed a void space between them. He admired the innocence and the beauty of his daughter. A smile formed naturally.

He touched his wife’s hip. She turned as if to avoid his sudden incursion.

“You Slept?” He asked.

“ Hummm”. She replied.

“No you haven’t slept.”

“What do you want? If baby awakes you will have to make her sleep.” She fired at him annoyingly.

“ Do you Love me?” He asked.

“ Yea” She replied apathetically.

“ How much?”

“Uff, What happened to you? Gone mad?” She turned towards him to express her irritation.

“ What if I die, will you remarry?” he asked.

She got up and looked at him. She pinched hard on his thigh.

“ If I die will you cry for me? Refuse to eat and drink? Like the neighborhood lady Reena?” He asked her.

She looked at him hard. She got up and came close to him. She pushed him, making him roll to make space for her to lie next to him. She lazed next to him.

She hugged him hard. She rubbed her head on his hairy chest, gesture to show her affection.

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. Her red eyes had drops of tears waiting to roll down.

“Never say things like this at night after supper. Where will your daughter and I go if you are not in this world? I too would die.”

                                                              

She kissed him on his cheek.

He felt proud of himself. He felt manly; he had a woman who would prefer death than being his widow. He turned to hug her. She hugged him tight and he could feel her warm breath on his body, and drops of tears wetting his chest and flowing through the hairs, faintly tickling him.

Hi, My life updates

I thought I had just written a post few days back but was in for a super-shock.GRRRRRR……2 months and no updates.  I am still alive and breathing (If anyone cares).

Updates on My Life:

·         Went to Kerala on a tiny vacation. 10 days passed as if I was put to sleep and brought back to life 10 days later. That’s why I feel I should be more mindful of my existence; else life would pass by as if I were a moth born after the first rain.

·         Brought back the family. One year wait ended and my Wife and daughter traveled with me back to Bahrain. When I was alone I felt, as if my flat was huge, cold, lonely and depressing. Suddenly my 2 bedroom flat appeared too small a space. Little Ananya instantly conquered the space and declared possession, getting the life back to otherwise brick and cement and mortar.

·          My life has transformed for ever. Our( Wife and Mine) lives now revolves around the discretion of certain Ms. Ananya( my daughter) and we are adapting to her mood, Hunger and sleep. We whisper when she sleeps and only talk in our normal voices when she is awake. Three-forth of my Kingsize bed is now occupied by the reigning queen.She is awake by 5am, which otherwise was non existent hour of the day, and then starts the tussle to keep her entertained.  These days, my day start at 5 and until 9 am you could find me in the kitchen or providing amusement to the queen. AAAAAH..My Back.

·         Had party at my Wife’s house. It was fun. Whiskey(picked on the way from Duty-free) for the boyz( Bro-in-law, Father-in-law and me) and Martini for the girlz ( wife, Her sister and My MIL) and snacks, mostly consisting of fried seafood, flowed freely.

·     

From Anu Birthday

           Celebrated Daughter’s first Birthday on the 10^th of March(ABove photo  taken during her bday function). Booked a  Banquet hall at the Fortune Park hotel. It was Great Fun to see so many relatives and friends under one roof.

·         This year’s resolution of bridging the lost bond with my Father ended in the worst fight we have had so far. My father feels I have become proud and insolent and it’s because of the (he feels) success I have had in my career. I feel he is jealous of me, but then can a father be ever jealous of his son? Or is he jealous of the good relationship I share with my In-laws? Or is it because of over possessiveness?

·         After the fight, my father told me to leave the house immediately and it was past 9.30 pm at night. I had to beg him to allow us to stay until the morning because of the baby and the difficulty in getting a taxi so late at night (by Calicut standards). I promised that I wouldl never visit them again and my father challenged me to keep my promise. He cursed me that I would suffer and my bad days have only begun. My wife couldn’t control herself from crying and pleaded the old man not to curse us and the baby.

·         I feel whatever tiny bit of bond was left has been severed between us. I feel as if I have had no father, and the thought actually helps me feel better. I am through a strange situation in life when I feel it’s better to be an orphan than to cry over a disintegrated relationship. Its better to be fatherless than to have a father who has given me only hurt, all my life, including snatching my mother away from me.

·         It was my daughter’s first flight and she was howling almost half of it. Half of the passengers and almost all the crew tried appeasing her, of course without avail. We were glad that 4.5 hours of flight was over, which felt like one lifetime of flying. But once out of the plane she was all jovial and grab-whatever-comes-near-her-hand mood, including her papa’s hair and next passengers handbag.

Should Hindi Be a National Language?

This post is based on Neha’s reply to my comment on her Blog.Please read her blog post for further Gyan.

@ ZB, why not? why one language cannot be the official language of a country? English - looking at our literacy rate in India, English is not spoken or understood by vast majority..thanks to British people, none of our languages could prosper..they used English as the official language; thus it continued..but we do have our own identity..the major problem is that we are still looking at the smaller picture..tell me, will you ever be able to take the insult of not being spoken with or guided the directions in your own country because you do not know the local language? Don't you think if one language was made official at the time of formation of Constitution; we could all have at least communicated with one-another?

I feel Hindi is not our Identity. Hindi is a modern language which has derived from Khari Boli, Persian and Sanskrit languages. It evolved during the Mughal and British era. Bhojpuri, Gujrati, Rajesthani, Haryanavi etc are much older and purer than Hindi.Devanagari Script was adopted to Standardize the language. Earlier Sanskrit had no script. In south India Sanskrit was written in Tamil.

Forcing down a Language doesn’t make it popular. In Kerala, Hindi is taught from the school level, but people hardly speak the language. If Hindi would have been made our National Language in 1965, it would bring much shame to the language 50 years down the line. It would be shameful for a National Language when half of the population don’t understand a word of it.

Believe me, if I know just Hindi( and not English) and travel the country I would face bigger problems in communicating, Where as English is much more understood by majority. In places like South India or Eastern states, there would be atleast few people who would speak English, if not the majority, but I doubt if it’s the case with Hindi.

Hindi doesn’t mean anything to me in South India.In Kerala for example, all communications are in either Malayalam or English. Hindi plays absolutely no role and its not because its not been taught there in schools.Where as Malayalam is spoken because it’s the identity of the people. Or tamil is in Tamilnadu. So is the case in Eastern States.

Being a lawyer, do you still believe that just because its made a National language of the country as per the constitution, it would be widely spoken by all Indians? Its not Practical and the makers of the constitution understood it much more than anyone else. That’s why it was never adopted.

why only Hindi - then just read the facts mentioned below..

India has two two linguistic families. The Indo-Aryan languages, 11 in number, derived from Sanskrit are spoken by nearly 75% of whom Hindi is spoken by 42% of people..The Dravidian languages spoken by 24% people prevail in Southern India of whom Telugu is spoken by largest group.

In a country with over a billion population, a mere percentage means a lot. 24 % is a lot of people, that’s over 250 million people. Learning Hindi doesn’t really help people securing a Job, does it? On the other hand, if one learns English, Spanish or French its considered an advantage.

Why is a Language which is neither an identity, or technical advantage, forced down upon people as national language?

by making Hindi an official language of the Union, who is saying that other languages will no longer be the official languages?

If you do not want to speak a language; it is alright..but does that mean you will pretend that you do not know the language at all and trouble the helpless?

we all love freedom; but declaring one language as the OFFICIAL LANGUAGE does not take away your freedom from you..the meaning of declaring this language as official does not mean you have to compulsorily converse in that language or learn strictly in that language in school…

Hindi is already an official language along with many regional languages of the country. The question is if it should be made a National Language, for which I oppose. I oppose because it doesn’t truly represent India. It represents only about 50 % of the country.

South India is drastically different from Hindi speaking part of the country. Tamil or local language is its identity. Same is the case in Bengal, Assam or Manipur.

Speaking in a language depends on the comfort level. In my case, I speak in Malayalam to majority of malayalees. I speak in Hindi with my Northee friends.

However, I speak in English with few of my malayalee friends, not because I want to show off or I feel Malayalam doesn’t have enough vocabulary. Its just that to a particular person I can only speak in a particular language. To my cousin sister Sandhya, I can only speak in English though both can speak Malayalam fluently. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?

However, I do feel Hindi should be taught in schools and Karunanidhi style opposition to any language shouldn’t be encouraged.

I feel we shouldn’t have a National language and Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali…ETC should be equally encouraged, as much as Hindi should be.

 Jai Hind and Happy Rupublic day to all.

Please help, is something wrong with me?!

Friends told me it’s a GREAT movie. And Raju Hirani is one of my favorite directors. And I went to watch the movie thinking Mr. Hirani can never go wrong. And I thought Lage raho munna bhai was one of the finest movies in bollywood. and I was wrong.

I hated the movie. And It was super bore. And Not a single scene caught my attention. And I felt I had seen it all.   Except perhaps the child delivery scene. I almost had tears in my eyes thinking how my wife would have felt through and gone through the pain and torment. And not because of the movie.

Each and every scene reminded me of some other scene from some other movie. And Some English, some Malayalam, some recent hits like DIL CHAHTA HAIN etc.And  The jokes were rather stale and tried and tested several times. And I had a strange sense of déjà vu watching the movie. But Aamir Khan looked good for his part and if not for Aamir the movie would have been much worse.

From the first scene where Madhavan diverts a flight and runs through the airport and finally manages to get into a stopped car meant for someone else, it hit my senses in a strange negative way.

Perhaps I expected a lot from Hirani. And I remember watching Lage raho and silently howling. What a plot. And What a screenplay. And What freshness. And I had never seen anything like it.And When the BGM played vande mataram I had my eyes flowing like flooded Brahmaputra, literally if not symbolically.

But may be I am wrong. And May be I am getting too old for silly gags, the box office proves otherwise. And I am the only one in my office and odd one amongst around 20 people I know who has not liked it. Whats wrong with me? Do i need to consult a psychologist and takeup counseling?Please help ! :(