Dear Struggle,

Dear Struggle,

You, are always there with me.

People walk in and then they walk out. Times, money, places, opportunities, happiness, youth, sadness all come and go.

But you? No. You will never walk out on me. I know. You are like my shadow, my closest ally, my most known feeling. You are always there for me, aint you?

With you I am something. Without you, nothing. You define me, complete me. You have grown on me, and now I have actually started liking you.

So stay.

Sometimes, I may fight with you. Ask you to leave. Go away. But I know you will come back. After all, you too cant live without me.

If it wasnt for you, there would be just existence. The wins over you are what give me happiness, joy and ecstasy. So thank you.

Yours,
Ginger

A life that lived

Everything that I could have done, but will never do…
Everyone I could have been, but never will be…
And all those things that I dont even know I have missed…

—————————————

Can I live my life a million times over? A different story, each time?

—————————————

So much to take, so much to give
Before I leave, a million lives to live.

Irony

When being happy requires an effort
Happiness itself becomes a topic of mirth.

If I could

If I could go back in time,
And change one thing that I did,
I would probably just fearlessly
Say everything that I ever hid

Masked

So we still have our layered conversations.
Two at a time.
Thought as prose,
Masked as a rhyme.

Wisps of Smoke

Sometimes you just dissipate and simply fade away
‘Just thinking something else’ is all you say,
Sometimes you are just increasingly dense,
And when asked, you just call yourself intense.

Around me, yet I can’t touch, you are still but wisps of smoke
Smoldering away inside you and me, the ashes of our love choke.

O’ Stranger

O’ Stranger, it’s so easy to open up everything to you
I can pour my heart and not care about being judged too

Whats good?

Is it that you can’t decide what’s good for you
When you want it and don’t want it too.

Communication

So fucking important.

Misused.
Underused.
Abused.

Misunderstood.

Needed.
Sought.
Forced.

Attempted.
Avoided.
Ignored.

Builds.
Breaks.

Throttles.
Eases.

Solves.

Underestimated.
Over-sold

Universal.
Individual.

So fucking important.

‘Whatevered’ so often

(Feel Free to add your own adjectives)

Frightened

I seek to cure whats deep inside, frightened of this thing that Ive become

- Africa, Toto

Can you?

If you never have what you want then can you miss it?

Me but not me.

You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me till I’m sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
Theres someone in my head but its not me.

- Pink Floyd

The word To

First we sing:
I never dreamed that I would lose somebody like you

Then we sing:
I never dreamed that I would lose to somebody like you

Run

I run away from you only to run into you.

Swap

Sometimes it’s important to know
What to hide and what to confess
And sometimes we unknowingly swap
Confessions and secrets to make a mess

Pouring

They say when it rains after a long drought, it pours.
It is pouring here too.

Pouring lots of things.

Coming Back to Life

O.K.

I have fallen in love.
Yeah..agreed its just 40 years too late. But nevertheless I have. It’s O.K.

But they say the voice is half the love (some old iranian/persian/i dont know which culture had this belief). I agree now.

The object of my sudden affection – then and now.

Veiled

And he for whom, I was the world, hoped he knew all my secrets.
And he, who thought he was my world, thought he knew all my secrets.
And he, for whom he himself was the world, didn’t wonder if I had any secrets.
And he, who hoped to become my world, asked me if I had any secrets.

And me?

Well… I will let that remain a secret.

Will I realize?

‘Do you believe in God?’ he asked.
‘Not yet’ I replied.
‘Not yet?’ He raised his eyebrows in question.
‘Not yet because I still haven’t found a reason to call upon him to help me out’.
‘Someday you will realize he is there’ He sighed.
‘I hope I don’t’. I winked.

The chocolate box.

Some people are funny.

They shut you in a box and then tell you, you ought to have the time of your lives because you are in a chocolate box.

The point is….. what if you don’t like chocolate?

More than furniture

O.K. So I was the soppy kind of a kid who used to absolutely loooovvveeee playing ‘houses’ when I was younger. (you can see how soppy I was by the way I pull that looooovvveee)

Last week an unexpected visit to Ikea left me with that same exhilarated feeling that you have when you are playing houses (yes yes! I am soppy!)– that of creating your own house, in a way you want, with your imagination and without compromising on your choice.

Of course – I was only buying a few knick-knacks (for the rented apartment with its already existing furniture) and not an entire houseful of stuff, but it suddenly gave me this deep deep longing to start playing houses again – only this time for real. Make my own house, maybe design my own house like an architect.

And in my mind I was already making up some 20 different houses with a different interiors theme for each of them – The one with the white walls and red windows, the one with the turquoise and blue curtains and lazed out sea-green lounge in the hall, the one with the black and grey dining table and chairs and the one with the cream porch with the warm brown cushion chairs.

And I could not stop co-coordinating the curtains with the cutlery with the bath-mats with the laundry basket with the sofa with the bed-sheets with the closets with the curtains with the waste-paper basket with the knife-holder, with the refrigerator with the lamp shades with the picture frames. And suddenly I wished I were an interior designer and people’s houses were my canvas and I paint my imagination on their walls and in their gardens,

The coolest part about Ikea is the do-it-yourself concept. For those like me who are so used to the furniture being delivered home by those wizened looking men in the white vest and tattered trousers on their ancient handcart, the whole packed-Sofa-cum-Bed-take-home-in-the-backseat-of-your-car-and-assemble-in-your-bedroom-in-fifteen-minutes concept can be really exciting.

It’s almost like making a sculpture or something. O.K not exactly like sculpting (I know I know ..,, I just got a little carried away) but closer to sculpting than most of us have ever been. And suddenly I want to be a sculptor and make beautiful figures in marble and clay that adorn living rooms across the world

And then I go into the kitchens – those tastefully made-up, co-ordinated, fully equipped modular kitchens and I want to be a chef only so that I spend all my time in that you-cant-believe-a-kitchen-can-be-so-beautiful-kind-of-kitchen

And once I spent hours strolling through this wonderland, I suddenly wanted to be the merchandiser for this store because that gives you the chance to select what you want to keep in this store, to provide co-ordinated material.

I knew Ikea was about building color-co-ordinated dreams, self-sufficient houses, perfect homes. But now I know it can also be about all those things I could have been but am not.

Don’t think they know yet, that they sell more than furniture.

Well laid plans

And sometimes the only flaw in all our well-laid plans is wrong measurement

Blind Folded

And sometimes when all the effort we put in was closing our eyes,
And blindly, not thinking, we went choosing
On which parameter did we measure our success or loss,
When we played no part in winning or losing

A little bit of Voldemort

And we all put a little bit of ourselves in all those little things around us.

We put our memories in that torn dog eared comic book from when we were ten and hide it in the cupboard lest anyone borrow it.
We may turn thirty and yet every morning we drink our tea from the mickey-mouse printed coffee mug that our dearest buddy gifted to us on our birthday when we were fifteen because he could not afford anything more.
We might not wear it now, but in the dark recesses of our drawers we still treasure that tiny pendant which once adorned our necks but which if worn now, will make us stoop with the weight of all the love it once carried.
And the cheap plastic ring that we sometimes wear because it reminds us of someone else in a different place and time.

And the little bits of our souls that we put in those around us and forge those connections with those whose souls we attach to our consciousness

Guess there is a little bit of Voldemort in us all.

Consequences and Regrets

I would rather live with the consequences of things that I did, than with regrets of those that I didn’t.

O.K. 2

O.K.

The last time I had this feeling was when I watched the movie ‘American Beauty’ for the first time.

I cannot describe what I felt.
Actually because I didnt feel anything.
Actually no. It was more because I didnt know what to feel.

Kind of weird actually.

I didnt feel happy and I didnt feel sad. I didnt feel lost yet I didnt feel I complete. Mixed? No. Clear? No.

Just a feeling which felt like feeling something which is like nothing.

Hmmm…..

O.K.

O.K.

I just finished the Deathly Hallows and all I can think of saying is What the Fuck!

Who am I this time?

Am I the one who has loved
With the passion of a raging fire
Or am I the one who said ‘I love you’
And in same breath called myself a liar

Am I the one who has written
Glorious lyrics that a few have ever seen
Or am I the one who fit the description of
‘The worst poet’ that most think, has ever been

Am I the one who has laughed in the sun
And felt that ecstasy that runs so rare
Or am I the one who flitted for months
Among foggy clouds of my own despair

Am I the wanderer that I claim to be,
The traveler of all the world’s market squares
Or am I the one who enjoys the solitude
Of lying buried in my own library’s lair

Am I the one who loved them all
And am I the one, her soul who shared
Or am I the one who fought her own battles
And along the way never really cared

Am I the one who worked for a cause
Am I the one who walked with a dream
Or am I the one who drifted in time
Belonged to no man, no woman and no realm

And then sometimes I stop the watch
And I lazily compose such a rhyme
Knowing I will not answer the question, I still ask,
Who am I this time?

I wonder…

And there are times when I lazily wonder,
Am I a deliberate effort or am I God’s blunder?

The Rainbow beneath my feet

And sometimes we try to find the rainbow in our sky,
And forget to see the riot of colors that stains
The very ground on which our feet lie

Choices we make

And I realised it’s all about a choice.

A choice between wanting to be happy and not having the courage to make that choice.

It’s always easier to not be happy, ain’t it?

The flip side

The flip side of learning that there is nothing and no one that you cannot live without, is realising that there is nothing and no one to live for

- Anon

Walking out

She wanted to love, but didn’t have the courage to.
When she finally found the courage to, she lost the will to.

First love walked out on her and then she walked out on love.

Does anyone know?

I asked them all,
Do you know, what you don’t want in life?
And I was flooded with a host of answers.

Then I asked them all,
What do you want out of life?
And no one could answer.

Self Lying

When I do things not from my heart
But because they are easy
Am I cheating someone else?
Or am I lying to me?

On second thoughts,

Is knowing this and still doing,
The same as self-lying?

Whatever

The single most expressive word – Whatever

Next Two most expressive words – Who cares?

Next Three most expressive words – What the fuck!

Next Four most expressive words – My ass I will…

Next Five most expressive words – I give a rat’s ass.

All in all…… Whatever!

I wish…

He said Women are complicated.

I could not agree more.

Sometimes I surprise myself with the number of things I am capable of feeling at one go. I am surprised I dont burst with the tension inside me.

I sometimes so wish I was just a guy. Living would have been easier. Boring… but easier.

Phew.

Silence

He left in silence.
All she was capable of doing was screaming. Instead she kept quiet.

She thought the screaming in her would stop. She would be able to speak again.

And the silence killed. Slowly. Like poison. Crept into her and choked her soul.

Left behind a void so dense, not even sound escaped.

Escape

And we are each other’s escape…
…Is it from ourselves or from the world?

Consolation Prizes

I hate consolation prizes. They are a big fucking insult.
“Ok honey, so you are not good enough to win the game, but we will still give you a prize to try and make you feel better (pity, pity)”

What the hell!

I either win or I lose.

If I win, great!

If I lose, shit!
Either, I try harder next time, or I say fuck it; I don’t want what I didn’t deserve the first time.

Life doesn’t give any consolation prizes.

Why?

Run, fast, quick, soon, swiftly, hurry, faster, now!, speed up, right away, of course, rapidly, quicker, rapid, accelerate, zoom…

Halt.

Why?

Stop.

Breathe.

Relax.

Breathe.

Phew.

Unwind

Breathe.

Slow.

Breathe

Start. Run, soon, quick, run, run run run run….. Why?

Only once.

You love only once. Anything else after that is you ‘wanting to love’.

With a difference

And of all of those that we love,
We love with a difference.

Some we love because we need them
And some we love because they need us.

And some we love because to us they belong
And some we love because to them we belong.

Some we love because they set us free
And some we love because they help us remain tangled.

And some we love because they heal our pain
And some we love because they give us pain

And some we love because they make us laugh
And some we love because we make them laugh

And some we love because they live our dreams
And some we love because they are our dream

And of all those that we love,
We love with a difference

Break !

Prepositions can make such a hell of a difference in the life of that one verb “Break”.

Let’s break down – like go insane, have a nervous breakdown, rattle our brains and announce that we cant work anymore. Hmm..long vacation due?

Let’s break out – like break free, run as much as you want, shout, scream, do as you please, show the world the finger, be the kings and queens of your own desire. In our minds, we do it everyday?

Let’s break in – Like break into the vault of some superrich dude and run away with all that money, break into a bank and run away with all the super rich dudes’ vaults. We could all do with some extra money right?

Let’s break up – Like, listen I have had enough of you and I cant stand any more of you. So bye bye, I break up with you and don’t want to ‘stay friends with you’ and I will chill out now. Time to go bar – hopping again?

Cool thing is, all of these finally succeed in giving you that much needed Break (the noun )

Race

And she wondered if it was her face that tainted the mirror or the mirror that tainted her face
Had they won the run, or had she lost the race.

Will you be my bath tub?

Will you let me sink in into you.

Will you let me feel you all around me?

Will you warm me and pamper me?

Will you be there when I return home at the end of a long weary tiresome day.

Will you let me quietly lie and read my favorite book or listen to my music without being forced to talk and still feel nice about being with you?

Will you be my bath tub?

If all of us followed our dreams

If all of us followed our dreams, who would do our current jobs?

* ——–* ——–*

Then the world would have only jet plane pilots, beauty queens, musicians, artists, authors, sculptors, bikers, road-trippers, discovery channel hosts, travel experts, teachers, movie stars, movie directors, dancers, martial art experts, educational scholars, sailors, pirates, astronauts.

No market researchers, no analysts, no software developers, no bankers, no liftmen, no spotboys, no delivery boys,no client servicing personnel, no account planners, no civil engineers, no watchmen, no salesmen, no stock market traders, no jewellery makers.

Deviations

Unfamiliarity can kill in many ways. Familiarity kills by suffocation.

*—-*

If we did not deviate, how would we find joy in returning to the mundane?

Unlearning

The only thing more difficult than learning important and hard lessons life tried to teach you is unlearning the lessons you learnt.

Fukitol

There are those who trip on Rolled Leaves
A few who drown themselves in Alcohol
and some turn a dozen Cigarettes to ash,
While I go and just pop in a new Fukitol

Game

You know that life’s got a sense of humour,
and on you, its played its own funny game,
when you realise your biggest dream and
your worst nightmare turned out to be the same.

Spark

To me, the will to be happy and being happy are two different things.

If you want to be happy, you will find ways of being happy. No matter how bad the situation, you will rebound. Somewhere sometime find a reason to be happy. That little spark will burn inside you. That little spark of wanting to be happy.

That little spark inside you will give you little shocks of happiness. It will make you want to let loose sometime, be silly sometimes, act crazy sometimes, fall in love sometimes, look into the mirror and smile sometimes, hide shy smiles behind your monitor at your desk sometimes.
That spark that will light up your eyes at the sight of your favorite flavor of ice-cream, make you scream with delight at a well-made cup of hot tea and feely dizzy with happiness at the sight of your bed at the end of a long weary day.
The same spark that will let you enjoy the coffee-shop as many times as you go to it, because it’s the place where you meet people you love and not go to have coffee.
The same spark which will let you walk out into the rain and soak in the sheer pleasure of cold drops running down your chest and not worry about wet clothes thereafter.
That same spark that will let you sit on the beach and stare at the sky while it turns from azul to indigo and a thousand colours in between and just be happy that the sky did this for you.
That same spark will lead you to discover new places and new moments to be happy in.
That same spark will lead you to make more and happier memories and then give you the strength to derive more happiness from these memories.
That same spark will ensure that you forget the trying times and the sad moments and only the happiness that you have ever experienced will continue fuelling you through the day.

And there will be days when you will be happy even without a reason.

I understand people being sad. Depressed even. Circumstances can make you that way. Sometimes.

You can be sad, yet want to be happy.
But I cannot understand when someone just doesn’t want to be happy.

I cannot understand when someone just gives up that will to live, that will to be happy, that will to be touched by anything around them that can make them happier.

I cannot understand when people just stop trying to find happiness around them and resign themselves to living a half-life where sunlight does not penetrate and they are lost in their own foggy clouds of despair and self-pity.

After all you are the only one who can make you happy. Nobody and nothing else can. Wonder why it’s so difficult to see.

Wearing memories.

Memories come flooding back in the weirdest of places. With the weirdest of things.

The other day I was ironing my clothes. And suddenly with every garment that I picked up, at least two stories popped into my mind.

Events that had happened when I was wearing that particular garment.

Like the orange full sleeve top.
The first thing that popped into my mind was when I made A wait for me near the garden while I walked upto A in my hair all wet and askew at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday and started profusely apologizing for being late. And A looked at me so calmly and said “ Its ok. I don’t mind spending a little time with myself”
That orange T-shirt stands for so many other moments.
For an old palace. For strawberry ice cream. For dancing in the car park.

The Black collared t-shirt.
Absolute flood. For Carter Road on a rainy afternoon in August 2006. Breakfast and NCPA on August 16th discussing Shantaram.
For the only picture of D and me, that has come out nice. We almost look like a nice couple. (D would freak if I tell him this)
For the walks on a red jogging track with M. Discussing life, careers, friends. My farewell date with M.

The Green round collared t-shirt.
R gifted it to me. In Goa. In December 2005. At the end of four days of being in paradise. It said “The universe revolves around me”. The indulgent look in R’s eyes.
Sitting with D at a sunset viewing gallery in Bali. Drinking coconut water from a coconut the size of a football. The smiles faltering soon after. The disconnect.
Walking with A at carter road for the first time. The ice cream thereafter. The start of it all.

The red tshirt with the black collar.
Sitting with K at Barista. Corner table (as usual). The look in K’s eyes, like he found a diamond. The sheepish smile. The combined laugh with K on the similar histories of my red tshirt and his grey one.
Shopping for that t-shirt with M. Lifestyle in Malad. The indulgent look in M’s eyes. The smiles. The consolation “No no, you are not fat”.
The injured pout outside National college in Bandra.

The brown short sleeve t-shirt.
Laughing our heads off at Barista. K, A and I. As usual, the three mad musketeers. The guy with the weird accent. The repeated requests for pictures. The mad mad mad laughter. Shopping for that t-shirt with M. Again the request for help, “ Do I look fat?” Prat comes the practiced “No”

The short formal shirt.
The first time out with M. Meeting outside Bandra station. Movie in Bandra. The shy smiles, the wonderings in the head.

The Black wraparound skirt.
A gift from R. During our days of studying together. I want to gift you. Why? Just like that? Why? Don’t argue. Ok. Thanks. Crazy woman. Nice you look. Ok. Thanks.

The Mauve sari.
The only gift from W. The most beautiful gesture. I cant believe it. You go shopping for sarees? Yes yes, with my mom sometimes. I cannot believe it! What are you saying! I know…sissy eh? I don’t think so. No its not. It’s sensitive. A new face of the rude adorable W.

The Pink full sleeve top.
From Wills lifestyle. On that only date with A. Carter road. Bandra. Funny Funny Funny.

The Green full sleeve shirt.
On that only date with R. Again Funny Funny Funny.

Every T-shirt, shirt, to, jeans, comes loaded with so many memories.
It’s sometimes comforting to wear my own stories everyday.

Point of view

Give me one who always agrees
And one who sometimes does not,
And I will go and choose the second
For she has that, what I have not.

Lessons

And life taught us lessons that we should not have learnt.

You learnt that we will not get something unless we give it our everything.
I learnt that we still do not get something, despite giving it our everything.

we Make we Break

we Make.
we Break.

we Chase, we Laze
we Get, we Hate
we Cry, we Lie
we Smile, we File.
we Give, we Live.

we Make,
we Break

Think

We say things and then shrug off the responsibility of their consequences by that simple statement “What was I thinking!”

The funny thing is, this situation arose exactly because we were NOT thinking.

The responsibility of wanting

And so many times we reasoned out our actions by saying

‘I did it out of habit.’
‘I did it because that was the logical thing to do’
‘I can’t help it, its just me’
‘I did it thinking what you would feel’

And every time we said this, we unknowingly or knowingly passed on the responsibility of what we did.

To habit
To logic
To stubbornness
To other people

All the time ignoring the fact that we had a choice.

All the time forgetting that every action of ours was a choice – our individual choice.

And everything that we did was a result of choosing – based on what we wanted.

For at the end it all boiled down to only one reason – Because we wanted or we did not want.

Only we tried to evade the responsibility of wanting.

Raindrops

And the raindrops that clung, glistened in the sun,
While the others were washed away,
To lose themselves and flow along, as the river run.

He sang I sing

He sang

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

I sing

Every minute is getting longer, lonliness is the guest and I am the host
Plans that always come to a naught and half a paragraph of a half-heartedly typed post.