A year older and none the less wiser :)

As i sing another birthday wish, wholeheartedly, my mind flies back to a time in the past. I sat in the rear dungeons of a speeding car and quietly ushered in a new year. A year older and I wondered if I had become any wiser. If the marks of age had started wearing off on me. I still love the ice cream drip down the cone as I lick every finger, to not miss the fleeting last taste.

The look of the rainbow and the smell of water in the air still turn me on and I still sit here waiting for the first sight of the snow. My childish wit still wants to be the tyrant in any conversation and I still argue with anybody questioning my choices.

My nights are still blessed with nightmares, the ones that I jump out of, brimming with sweat and panic. I still cuddle on to my pillow and want to spend every possible minute in bed before duty calls. I still rush home from work like a child running back from school, liberation and freedom in the air. The sights and sounds of the trinkets still please me and I want to own every single candy store in the country. I want to read every page I can lay my hands on and listen to every piece of music that lies at my disposal.

Money and politics do not interest me as yet and I still do not understand the workings of my market. Yes, I comprehend my taxes, but I do most of the related out of mere force. I still love the shades of red and orange in the fall foliage and I love to let the waves wash me away. Rollercosters still thrill me and candy floss makes my day.

Have I grown an inch different in the years I have lived? Tough question. Do I want to change any bit from what I was yesterday? Given a chance to go back in time, would I change anything that I see right now? No. I am sure I will make the very same choices that I have made this far and that is what defines me today. Happy Birthday!!

A sordid mind, a lost soul and the white sands

It had turned out to be a fight for freedom, an issue of now or never, a do or a die as the cliche goes. We had to find the right moment, the perfect moment of blue and white. The journey had become a quest for us outsiders, a token to take back as proof for greener pasteurs and bluer waves out there. When we finally reached destination finale, after hours of soaring tempers and disappointed ideas, there was no more room for any further wait. The urge was obvious when each pair of feet ran out of land at the first sight of the sea, a thirst quenched by the first drop of the ocean water on our feet.

An hour later, as I walked back, satisfied for the minute with the amount of ocean I had in me, I took a second look at the beauty that lay in front of me. It had been an old lover's return, the first touch had the same sense of urgency and had sent out the same shrills as the initial touch of fingers, after seeming years of separation. As I had let the waves take me in and wet me through, it had been a feeling of complete surrender, a complete acceptance of anything my mate had in mind, a total trust in letting life go ahead with each wave.

As the day had unfolded, there were a million trinkets of emotions sprayed across the floor of my mind. There were a series of ex-es and the questions of life post a fall-out, questioning my very roots in the belief of love. Then there was the eternal question of weighing your friends as much as you weigh your emotions. was it wrong on my part to expect all the goodies at one go and not want to make a choice of one over the other?! Is it too complicated a thought to compartmantalise, to make sure there is room for everyone in our lives?! That way, one gets to eat the cherry and the pudding. I believe there is always enough love in our hearts to share it around and there should never be a point in your lives where you will have to stop giving away to one, in order to satisfy another. If you find yourself having reached that crossroad, where it is one or the other, then there lies hell; a fate that you have built for yourself and are the only one to be blamed.

As I lay there, on the pristine white sands, letting the crystal sea wash itself through me, I experienced a cleansing of sorts. A purging of thoughts, ideas, emptions and any such baggage that life rests on you. All I felt was the sea, the lash of the waves, the sound of the air and the moment. And a holy thought it was, to live every minute for its due worth. Who may tell what trials may swarm you down tomorrow! As we had drove down to the beach, on a strip of inconspicuous land across the vast, over bearing ocean, my life had decided to do just that, enjoy every stretch of beauty that lay around me; complete with all its colors and shades.

A new year had quietly found its way in; neither announcing itself consciously nor making a hullahoo about it. And I had grown a step closer to maturity, a small foot ahead to a life where I could decide to live a life that I choose to carve for myself and not let commitments bind me down. As I had watched the last inch of the sun's orange blend into the blue, I had let all fears and worries rest and had enjoyed myself to the last minute.

I cruised into another destination, the wind playing games with my hand and summed up the happenings of the last one day in one sentence :

It is always worth getting dirty and letting some sand mess with your hair.

Claymation

Life takes us down its own course, a surprise at every turn, a shock at every halt. And the only common factor I note between yesterday and today is the total cluelessness with which I take life's ride in the stride. At moments, a few, when I stall and think about what is unfolding around me, the shape that life has taken, I wonder if we are after all just that. Pots of clay, rotatin fast on the wheels of the potter, letting the soothing fingers of the master run through us. Pain, there is, in some of those moves. But all to the end of moulding our lives to something we know nothing of. A tomorrow to our today that we might not live to watch. A shape to the mass now that resembles the earth.

And how much of perfection that is eventually achieved is dependant on the resistance we give to that external force. Or should I say, lack of resistance. The more we hold back, the stiffer the clay, the sloppier earthenware, I believe. An honest though, approves my head. It is this understanding that I take forward, to let the highness run his hands through me once again, to shape me for the new day. Closing thoughts are that of distant amusement, awe at the novelty in life I suddenly see and a strange inkling of excitement at what is to come.

Of Friends and Love!

Very recently, I lost another friend to love and I should add that it hurts. The shift from being a friend to a good friend to a lover is such a smooth transition that you barely notice when you ride over from one court to the other; Or, in my scenario, when you have committed the sin of tempting your partner to move. And more surprising than this is the hard truth that the direction of move is biased and the ease with which one moves up is drastic compared to the reluctance with which we move back.

And even on finding our way back to a previous role, whatever the reasons driving that may be, I don't think the ground is the same any longer. The uneasiness that lingers on, swift fleeting glances that mean a million things and speak not a word, brings with it a sense of eerie with it. It is a state where you are no longer together but are still around, trying to build a bridge across the overflowing river. An extreme sense of urgency to cover up the cracks in the china, that you so willingly chose to break a minute back.

It is in such times when I am forced to think which relationship I value more, the coveted role of the beau or the closer than life bonds of a friend. In most cases I think I would pick the latter. Most cases, I say, because of the bitter tastes that I carry in my mouth from the past. I choose to build a basket of good friends and keep them there, than let transitions snatch the treasured away, only in hope for a better tomorrow.

Tomorrow and the thought of it has become something of a repellant to me of late. What ignorance would make one sit and idle away time in hopes and thoughts of a tomorrow that we are no sure of than the love we promise to the other. Irony, I should say, that we spend today in hopes of a tomorrow we want to live. When all that it takes to change it to our suit is living today to the best.

As the winter fades away

Fresh out of the previous night, I stare out in the open at what the world has to offer for today. The sight that swarms me pleases me in more ways than one. The dew that sits tiptoed on the leaves, leaves a tipsy effect on my eyes. I see trees fight with strong opposition to sneak out their best buds and leaves; I see victory all around me. Every being around me that breathes, seems to have taken the cold wrath of the winter in a profitable way, taking home a bounty of learning. The battle against the fury of the season that is fading away has left everyone stronger at heart, ready for tougher battles to rage ahead in life.

As I look on, I see the white of the winter taken over by the white of the flowers. Harbingers to a summer of bright colors, these are the perfect farewell to a period of quiet, an apt welcome to times of activity. I stretch and relax, knowing that good times lie ahead. As much as there might be doubt and obscurity in what lies ahead, the shape that the world has taken between yesterday and today tells me that higher beings have a better plan in mind for us lesser mortals.
when I see a smile on every face and a song in every heart, I wonder how much of what we are or what we become is molded by our vicinity. A huge amount, I infer, for the same mind, teeming with morbid thoughts of despair and hopelessness elsewhere, saw rays of hope in every sway of the breeze here. A strange array of thoughts, prospectives and possibilities, run through an idle mind. That's what I would say is a variation from times past, a glimmer of hope or a minimal ray of hope.

Yes, Life is moving ahead, on the fast lane but brimming with fervor and excitement, a roller coaster of sorts.