A piece from the platter of life

Sometimes; some things, incidents and people are best....forgotten.

The power of "Goodbye"

Food for thought. Goodbye – simple term; kaleidoscopic emotions.

Love

Think. For a moment, think what life would be without love. Quick thinking, I’d say – a huge commercial loss for planet earth:). Excluding, the pseudo face of this commercialism, given our time and age, does the emotion called love truly exist? Recently, a good friend of mine, asked me a question - “Sandhya, “according to you” what is…love?” hmm..interesting question, I thought. Interesting, not because it was an “out of this world” topic; interesting because, the answer to that question has constantly evolved and varied over time, with the end result being “I don’t know..not too sure..its a feeling..hmm..cant explain”. Today, for a change, I comprehend; the answer to this sketchy question is finally visible to me.

Everyone has definitely, atleast once in their life, felt differently about someone; the eternal feeling of someone being special to them. To me, how long can one be special, given the tests of time, is the true answer to love. No one is perfect, and over time, everybody discovers atleast one reason to find that person you once thought was special and perfect; now, less than perfect, annoying, lackluster, or simply human in nature:). Being the realist that I am, to me, the true test of love lies in being able to rediscover time and again, as to why you coined this person special to begin with. This reminds me of something Tagore quoted; “I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever.” Truly, eternal love is seriously being able to love someone in different forms, over time, today, until the end of time (as philosophical as it may sound!). So whatever it is, that made you fall in love for the first time, let it be the way he says hello, or the way he makes you laugh, or the way he yells at you, or the way he has an explanation for everything under the sun, or the way his name automatically makes you smile, or the way he clumsily apologizes when he knows he’s at fault, remember what it was; always.

So, here’s a toast to all those in love, encouragement to those seeking love and enlightenment to those rediscovering love :)

Me- A Preamble

Imagine, a dark starry night…a blanket of stars cover the dark skies. Despite the unity of the dazzling stars that form this blanket, there’s always a cluster that’s astray..away from the herd..the odd ones..those that are probably alienated or those that simply chose to drift away. As a child, I would look up and always wonder about “these” stars – the most compelling or intriguing question back then was “why aren’t they accepted amidst the crowd?” As time, age and education served its purpose, the concepts of space, distance, planets and stars were well learnt. But the vivacity of my imagination refused to allow my heart to accept science for science:) even today, probably a good 20 years later yet, these are the stars that evoke emotions in me. This is perhaps, because, I always connected myself to “these” stars - distanced, secretive, warm, unusual.

My childhood revolved around fairytales, studies, concrete blocks, cars, sun, and above all, discipline. Adolescence was not too different from childhood – spent it blissfully, in a pretentious happy bubble named, Dubai. Dubai is still “home” to me though…a place where I spent my childhood..a place where my dad raised me to be the perfect girl...a place where my mom taught me to cook…a place where I learned to swim.. a place where I learned to drive..a place where my baby brother was born..a place where I made the best of friends..

However, here I am today, a struggling post grad student, in the UK, facing the realities of life. I wouldn’t say this reality of life is harsh; it’s more of a trade off between where I am poised, what my aims are…and what I’m truly good at. Sometimes, you have to pay a heavy penalty trying to reach where you want to reach, from the place you begin. When I look back today…I wish I could retrace a few steps and do some things differently.

With all this uncertainty in life right now, I sit back and think of my favorite quote “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get” :) so here I am, awaiting my Lindt of sorts.