The last couple of posts are from my last blog, which I can no longer access because I lost my passwords after my transition from Windows 7, to 8. This one however is to stay, thanks to Google. 

Her

“I sometimes imagine what it would be like to love you, what it would be like to have you love me back. All that anger and all those walls break down. I imagine what it would be like to be the only guy who you open up to, let in beyond your guard. I imagine what it would be like to be loved silently by someone so broken and hurt, but yet the only piece that completes my world”

I’ve only been left breathless by one thing in my life when it came to written material. That was the narration of the love story of two people in an Indian fiction novel, an exceptionally good one at that. Then I read this. Back then I was happy for her. That some guy felt so much, so deeply for her. Someone sent this to her on Valentine’s. Now, 5 months down the line, I am quite mad at that fellow because this is a masterpiece. I couldn’t have said it better and the knowledge that as of now nothing I can say can trump this only makes me angrier. But I find solace in the fact that I feel this way every waking moment until my consciousness shuts down for the day. Maybe someday it’ll come to fruition, maybe it won’t. Life just doesn’t work that way does it? Because at the end of the day, all I can do is, imagine. Not sometimes, but each and everyday until it drives me insane. Keep it wrapped in and hidden in a corner of my being, a testimony for having felt something so dangerously wonderful for someone so fragile, so broken inside. So beautiful and over her destructive pain, managing to leave a smile. I may be seriously fucked in the head when I am writing this, then again I maybe the most sane and level headed I ever was and probably will be. But regardless of how things pan out, she will always hold that special place in my heart because I have never felt more close to being a normal person and hoped for normalcy to prevail in my life, as much as I have when she is around. I have never dreamed as much as I have when she is around. I have never wanted to do something for someone as much as I wanted for her. No one has made feel like it’ll all be okay one day like she has. I’ve never gotten so much satisfaction from making someone laugh as much as I have when I made her laugh. That laughter which sounds like a new lease to life. It’s very nature is redemptive, and someday it’ll be mine to keep.

Coming back to life

Perennial. Persistent, never ending. And I would like to add slightly chaotic too. These past couple of months have been stressful and the extremely bothersome. But then again, as I sit outside in the balcony enjoying the brilliance of a mid June afternoon cooled by clouds who’ve just exhausted their supply of rain, I cannot help but wonder in awe about the duality of our life. How, it seamlessly weaves in from one dark, disturbing event after the other, to open into a beautiful , gloomy day like today that comes along and just lifts your spirits. I love these kinds of days the most. I feel it reflects on how I feel about a lot of things in life and having my mind set as a physical tapestry and some John Mayer playing , the mind whirs slowly, thinks about all things procrastinated upon and sometimes shunned. It contemplates up on bolted doors, repressed memories, decides to make peace with the past. Even though they’re behind doors, your mind doesn’t fail to remind you of its existence and your intense desire to stay away from having to deal with it ever, puts you in a taxing fix, after this repeats for quite some time, the head begins to hurt, the anger towards the past slowly ebbs away (much to my surprise). But it is a difficult process. After decades of nurturing the hate, the hurt, slowly you want to deal with it and bury it for good. While this is excellent for one’s mental health, even wanting to nurture that thought of wanting to deal with it is taxing. But I’ve got amazing friends. Two of them persuaded me, more like coaxed me into dealing with things. Confronting them. I always acted as mediator when something went wrong  between people I knew. A negotiator. But when it came to deal with my own problems, I couldn’t negotiate with myself or confront them. You begin to wonder on the anger and the toll its taken on you for these years. I have always counted on this very anger to fuel me to live and become somebody, achieve something. In hindsight, I’ve failed more than I have succeeded. Whenever I have succeeded this anger wasn’t the reason and slowly I was made to realize that this anger will pretty much consume me. Rage is good I’d say, controlled channeled rage. Mine was just all over the place and like superpowers that need to be kept under wraps I knew I needed to control my rage and deal with my issues, otherwise I’d be stuck in a stinky rut for all eternity. This very thought I felt was stimulus enough because I could see myself beginning to try. My friends’ voices were echoing in my head and although I was totally against what they wanted me to do, I did do what they asked. It was a percentage of the battle won. Slowly all the doors were opened and I was surprised to find some were empty, but the ugliest monsters did come out , waiting to be killed, menacing. I didn’t strike any of them down. I hugged them and wished them away. A look in the eye, a silent prayer for redemption, a genuine wish to wanting to start over was all that was ever need. They smiled and vanished in a pop, leaving only forgiveness and warmth behind and a dollop of happiness. This is a great feeling. You know the great feeling you get from antacid after severe heartburn? This is EXACTLY the same. You can breathe, you can smile, you can hope and you can be genuinely happy. It gives you strength and will power and it gives you a new lease of life. The annals of our mind is a place much like the Room of Requirement. It becomes whatever we wish it to be. It also reacts to what we put into it. All these repressed emotions, the bad memories, the hurt, the grief, it makes the mind a vengeful mind, that which cannot entertain a happy thought or hope. It loses the will or want to trust and even though a yearning to love and trust and be loved and trusted arises, the vengeful mind kills it and it only destroys the person further, making them a shell of who they were. I grew up with this bitterness and now that I’ve let it go, I have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do. I have known the taste of these things well now. I have also understood how these feelings can be channeled to our advantage. But now that everything is over, what’s next? It’s a wonderful feeling to feel free. It is scary, but it is extremely wonderful to forgive and move on. To let go of all that hurt and broke us. We get wounded, sometimes its a scratch, sometimes its a cut so deep , we only wish for death. But everything heals. The mind wants to heal, the heart wants to heal, it is up to each individual to permit that process to happen. It is a tough one, but when it happens, it opens a portal to a new world.
It’s a beautiful world, that is full of new, endless possibilities, where you have the power to do what it is you want.

Grandma

She was born as Thekke Palazhiyil Madhavikutty in 1933, in a palatial house in the village of Nadavaramba in Irinjalakuda, Thrissur district in Kerala. She was born into a house of teachers, highly respected and with a well known ancestry. While, in my times spent with her, even though I’ve never asked much about her childhood or her life as she was growing up, grandma has told me about all that has happened in her life , from which she wanted me to learn. All the adventures, about how her faith helped, many miraculous events that unfolded in her life and so on. She was very pious and a staunch devotee of Sai Baba of Puttaparthi. You’d think that she was a typical grandmother.
She wasn’t.
She was a teacher of science, math, English and biology. She retired in 1982. She was the District Education Officer for Ernakulam for a good long time. Knowledgeable grandma? You bet. Brilliant to say the least. I’ve been lucky to be taught by her whenever she visited. She used to visit for months together. She used to calm me down when I was running around in circles, quite literally, and tell me stories when I was smaller about her experiences and more spiritual things as I grew older. Her stories were rich in moral, and spoke of humility and courteousness and honesty and there was a piece of our ancestral history in it. If it hadn’t been for her I’d hate maths and physics like a good part of the population. She used to sit me down for hours, something which mom couldn’t do, and I saw the teacher in grandma who loved to teach and never give up until it was driven into my thick skull. Boy could she get angry!! I could always try to crack mom into let me go play. Grandma? Uh uh. No way. If homework was 50 sums, she’d make me solve 50 more and then only would she let me go. She set me straight. Once the studies were over, she’d start talking to me about the wonders of math and physics and how we can actually relate that with our faith and beliefs and that’s when she introduced me to the concept that religion and science wasn’t different from the other. She always encouraged me to ask questions and answered them better than wikipedia could have for me. I used to hate math and physics. Oh she would be so dejected. Cannot believe my own grandson, my blood hates the very subjects our ancestors have taught and professed all these years she would say. Each passing visit she would make listen to some new thing. She had excellent knowledge in chemistry and classical mechanics and optics. I had a natural interest in the night sky and fueled by talking of physics and its contributions to uncovering so many mysteries just increased my inquisitiveness about all of it and a certain thirst for knowledge was awakened in me. In full strength too. I never knew I had it in me. Grandma gave me insights into so many things. Father would always tell me I was being an unrealistic idiot, but grandma always scolded dad for it and encouraged me. With each passing day my interests grew and it made her extremely happy. Being her first grandchild, she had a lot of expectation from me. Being the lazy ass that I am, I procrastinated a lot. No one has ever scolded me and loved me in extremes as much as grandma. Sometimes she’d justify my acts of sheer childishness and naughtiness as “he’s just an inquisitive little one” and so on. Dad never stood a chance against grandma so he’d glare at me and go. I used to feel so guilty at times. But then she’d tell me why its bad and why I should always respect and listen to my father. She was also the one who introduced me to the concept of unconditional love and that we are unconditionally loved by and must love the same way, our parents. She was also the one who showed me, that regardless of their age, women can be exceptionally dramatic. Oh boy the way she and mom would fight. Good lord I used to hide behind father, who was just as stunned. Mom and grandma used to argue at everything. It was like seeing Vegeta and Goku fight. There was no end to it at times, but the way the made brought tears to our eyes. Grandma was no saint when it came to quite a few things, but her goodness and virtues overshadowed and compensated for any shortcomings. She was adamant when it came to flying to Bombay to be with us or going to Dubai to stay with uncle. She’d be living in that same old palatial house, alone. She took Bal Vikas classes and did charity work by working in Puttaparthi. She never left that house to stay with us. Her proudly admitted dinner would be bread and milk, which was her favorite food. Boils mine, uncle’s and mother’s blood when we think of it. Grandma did everything according to her wish. It was this adamant behaviour that led to her falling ill. For someone so knowledgeable and brilliant she ate erratically, stayed alone and became frail. She taught for 30 years, and her ill health lead to all the stress of the years taking its toll, which affected her brain. She fell prey to dementia, which is extremely hard to detect, and her strict no allopathic medicine policy made things unbelievably difficult. Soon , when she started hallucinating, we decided it was about time she left Kerala for a while. She came to stay with us in Bombay, where her hallucinations increased. Mom and uncle decided to put her up for treatment. It was then that we discovered she was ailing from dementia, which had already quite advanced. The MRI showed blank spots where the brain cells should have been and it was terrible. The doctors just told us it could be slowed down to a trickle, but she will slowly lose a grip on reality. All measures to take care of her was put into place. My mother decided to move back to Kerala to take care of grandma, and by late 2006 the grandma we all knew began to fade away. Her memory got worse and hallucinations worsened. In my head, I knew the grandma who I’d known all my life, was gone. Everyone knew that she wouldn’t recover, but were very optimistic about a long life for her. It however hung like a dark shadow over my head , and I knew that as far as I am concerned, grandma was gone. She never recognized me whenever I was with her after 06. She remembered my name but never my face. Grandma still said sensible things for three years into her condition, even cracked one liners that were funny. Always made me wonder, what was that shock , the doctors said she had gotten  which was responsible for kick starting her mental decline. But I never let myself forget the real grandma. Like a saved checkpoint, I remembered her the way she was before she left in 05. Extremely independent and never liked being told what to do.  She was very ambitious too and career oriented. She got married late and had mother and uncle when she was 33 and 39 respectively. This was in the 1960′s. I know a lot of people who have been inspired by her and whom she has sponsored and helped become successful today.
The true impact her life had on people, was reflected the way people , relatives, her friends, colleagues , students who’re all spread out throughout the world came to visit her in droves during her six years of illness and after she passed. For five long days people kept coming. Except the men, every lady who visited had tears in their eye. It just showed the amount of impact grandma made in their lives and how much she meant to them. It warmed my heart to see that , strangely enough. I had a feeling, heck I knew that where ever she may be, she too would be shedding tears along with them.
Grandma, I didn’t cry. Even when I helped the orderlies in the hospital carry you to the mobile mortuary, to placing you down and lifting you again to take outside for the rites. Ma, uncle, grand uncle, grand aunts, cousins all the elders. all came consoled, said things to make me feel better. What they didn’t know was I didn’t need comforting. I was relieved for you. I just visited you once in the CCU. Catheterized, hooked on to some machine that kept you alive, knowing you’ve lost sight and voice and your responsiveness. I didn’t need to see you again. I rushed out of there after five minutes with you. I vowed I would never enter the CCU again. That was when I fixed an image of you in my head. That of when you came to our Lokhandwala place for the first time and all of us came to receive you. Mom was crying when you exit the airport, seeing you were quite frail and I jumped the railing tohug you and take the trolley. You had that signature fragrance of Yardley around you and you wore your sari in that signature you always did. You were smiling and happy. It is an image that makes me smile wide. Mom was already quite miffed with you and was talking about how you’d be thrice as big when you left for Dubai to uncle’s. There was love, there was affection, you coming home filled me with dread because my lazy days were over and I would have to sit and solve problems and study properly, and I was so excited because it also meant knowledge boost and new new adventure stories. Also, rava laddu. I smile as I write this. So many beautiful memories. When you left for Dubai, it’d be right after I left for school and I’d cry till I slept and you’d talk to me over the phone about how you’ll be back soon.
There were threatening clouds on the day we started the rites. But I knew it wouldn’t rain. Golden sunlight ripped the overbearing clouds apart and it was bright everywhere. As soon as the smoke started coming in plenty, it engulfed us all. It was as white as smoke could be, the golden sunlight just enhancing its deathly brilliance. It was the purest white, reflecting the purity of your character.  You were no ordinary woman grandma. You taught me, inspired me to think out of the box. My intense desire to become a teacher is only because I am so inspired by the way you touched so many lives. Thousands of lives.
As I stood there, watching, waiting until the flames died down and nothing but bones remained, John Mayer was playing in my head, like a kind of dedication to her, as a melodious promise, something my soul shouted out for her, hoping it would meld with the smoke, as she had, when they finally became one with the elements, and their maker. These specific lines :
I Guess you had to be there
I Guess you had to be with me
Today I finally overcame
tryin’ to fit the world inside a picture frame
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I’m in the mood to
lose my way with words, but let me say
You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
it brought me back to life
You’ll be with me next time I go outside
RIP GRANDMA.
I will never forget you. I will never disappoint you. Your voice and your face while you were telling me ” you should always strive to not just become a great person, but a great person with goodness in him. People only pray Lord make my child a great person. I always pray make my little one a great one with plenty of goodness in him” always stays imprinted in my soul. I will always strive to become just that. Always your little one,
Your grandson

You must be wondering that a lot of my posts are mainly about the past. My best friends, my college life, the past! If you want to understand me, the real me, you have to know my past. It was extremely vital in shaping me and making me the man I am today. The last 7 years anyway. Until very recently, I was extremely hungover my past and I couldn't just find a way for myself to move on without having to have another emotionally crippling episode. Due to recent enlightening realizations, I finally have begun moving on and there probably won't more than another post or two about the past and then that's it. A lot of these things that I post about have been in my head for years, but getting them out in words that can give justice to these raw powerful emotions is a tedious task indeed and coupled with writers' blocks I can hardly manage to whip up a couple of posts every once in a while. However that won't be the case anymore. Every time I post about something, I have realized that I have been able to let go of it and that is a very wonderful feeling.

Thank you. 

Coming to terms with reality.

There is only way to go, and that is forward. In life, we can't move backwards. Each stage of life presents us with various responsibilities that we have to undertake to become men of stature in society, whether we like it or not. 

I've always believed that the fun, frolic and merry making between me and my best friends would last forever. Even when I had to move away from my erstwhile home, to a new one, 1000's of kilometres away from pretty much the 8 people I cared about ever, I wasn't that sad. I was so sure that I'd eventually move back once the reason for which I moved was no longer valid! But it was not to be. I blindly believed that my friends would stay where they were. Why would they want to leave Bombay? It was awesome then, in four years it would be a hundred times more awesome! But as I learnt, sometimes painfully and sometimes gratefully throughout my college life, nothing will ever turn out to be the way you imagined it. Even laundry day can go horribly wrong. My only crippling issue during the early years of college was that I would get phased out among my friends. That coupled with my latent fears of abandonment, just messed me up. I imagined the worst possible scenarios and being extremely possessive about my friends, I couldn't bear it. There was no phone calls every alternate day, no discussion of the first game of the season, no discussion of the new map on our favourite MMORPG. It was difficult, breathing was difficult. Irrational attachment was the noose around my neck. But the truth was far off from anything I had imagined. They were all just getting used to their new surroundings by befriending new people, exploring the places and thereby putting in time into their new relations. Soon I did the right thing. I moved on to do the things any newbie in a new place would do.

Here I am now four painful years of maturing and growing up later, having completely understood certain facets of the dynamics of generally every relation. What I now realize as being the most important component, was trust! Trust that my friends haven’t forgotten me and that once they’ve settled down, they will call and things will be great again. Eventually this did happen and my faith was rekindled and the fear, doused a little. Once I could establish a pattern, my concerns were slashed in half. But the reminders of old scars never failed to whip up a minor panic attack.

Recently, after college got over and I started my job, I visited my friends. I was the first of our group to start working. I asked them all what the next step was. The placed friend was waiting for his call letter, two others were prepping for entrances and one got in for masters there itself and other was pursuing a decently successful career in music. I was extremely happy for these guys. They were making headway. Nobody was in decision making limbo. But another realisation hit me. They were soon going to spread throughout the country and some might even leave it. Getting together and catching up would probably turn into a rare occurrence until all of them were settled down with proper jobs. They are a very important part of my life, a big influence in making me who I am today and now they were separating, going their own way and creating a new life for themselves. The pieces that’d made my life whole were now shooting away, leaving me an incomplete shell of a man. Before college I was sure a permanent reunion was in the books once I could return to my old home. But change is inevitable and being able to come to terms with that reality is the best thing one can do for oneself. Today I know that wherever we will be, we’ll always be in touch with one another through some or the other medium and even though it will never return to the frequency of my liking, calls, pings and mails will be returned and birthdays remembered and friendships cherished. Today I am finally proud of myself for being able to get rid of my crippling fears by simply applying rational thought to emotion and shedding some light on some troubling matters and be able to move on with my life without having to forget or give up on something. This is me coming to terms, with my reality.