The Story

You walk down the road, you purposefully turn left at the crossroads, you know exactly where you are going. You ignore all the emptiness that surrounds you in every direction and just keep walking. A right here, a left there and suddenly after an hour of walking you are back where you began, an old and crumbling building at the corner of an empty street half hidden by the branches of a large banyan tree. You look up at the light shining though the window of the fourth storey flat, take a deep breath, push through the gates and pass through, thinking that it wasn't so hard after all. You begin the climb up the stairs and suddenly it seems like it's impossible again, the stairs feel like they go on forever. You pause and wonder, maybe it isn't such a good idea after all, it is 4 o'clock in the morning, but then the memory of the light shining through the window flashes across your eyes and you can almost feel its welcome warmth. You start climbing again, faster this time, willing your legs to carry you with utmost speed towards your destination. At last you reach, out of breath but feeling glad that you made it this far, for realization dawns that coming this far was the easy part. You steady your breathing and reach for the doorbell and give it a push with no effect, you let out a small laugh, feeling like fate was laughing at you, testing you to see if you would give up. Feeling steadier now, you raise your hand and gently knock three times and then take a step back. You wait for something to happen but nothing does, so you step forward and try the doorknob and find it unlocked. You hope to God that you did the right thing and push open the door and the sight that beholds you reassures you that it was the right thing to do. A small figure is curled up sleeping in an armchair pulled up near the window, a book has fallen from her outflung arm onto the floor, glasses are still perched on her nose. You continue to stand at the doorway and look around the room, hardly anything has changed since the last time you were here, the same old sofa, the ancient lamp on the table beside it, the armchair by the window, the cabinet with the assorted showpieces from around the world, even the television set looked unchanged. Your eyes were drawn back to the sleeping form in the armchair, you look at her for a long minute, then cross the room and crouch beside her so that your faces are level. You wonder if you should wake her up, she looks so peaceful, then feeling like you would go mad if you didn't speak with her, you place your hand on her shoulder and gently shake her awake. She opens her eyes but doesn't move and smiles her welcome like she has been waiting for you for a while and then she lifts her hand and slaps you across your face. You are shocked and jump up yelling, "What the...?" to which her only reply is, "What took you so long?". She sits up now amused at the stunned look on your face, "What? You forgot that I can be unexpected?". You make haste to rearrange your expression to one of mild annoyance, clear your throat and say, "Your door was unlocked, anyone could have come in". She looks over at the door, nodding her agreement and then looks back at you, "But nobody else did, did they? Besides, the doorbell was not working and I knew I could count on you to show up the most unearthly hour when I was bound to be asleep and knowing your fascination with fate, you would probably leave and I wouldn't see you again for another ten years." She spoke lightly but you couldn't help feeling that you were as predictable as ever while she would never cease to surprise you. You say, "I saw your light on" at which she throws back her head and laughs, "For heavens sake would you stop stating facts?" but you are tongue tied, having agonized over this moment for so long, now that it has come you don't know what to say. She sighs, rises from the chair, comes towards you and saves you the trouble of thinking of something to say by placing her lips on yours. And in that moment, all your doubts vanish as you pull her into an embrace and kiss her back with a passion that you haven't felt in years and time just stands still for you in that moment. Nothing else matters.

Living in the Moment...

There is much sense in the saying 'stop and smell the roses'. That, along with many other sayings all say the same thing: enjoy the moment that you have right now. Everybody's heard of this but few of us understand what it really means. It does not mean that life should all fun and games but that it should feel like it is so. Too many of us are of the belief that constantly worrying about the past or the future will somehow help improve our lives. Not to say that some amount of planning is not necessary for life but to be obsessed with every little detail all the time just drains you of all the joy that comes with it. Take life as it comes, face problems, weigh options, make decisions but more importantly laugh loudly, smile widely and feel happy every day! Care more than it is wise, risk more than it is safe and dream more than it is practical, just do the things that make you happy today. Its true that tomorrow you may not remember most of these things but you will certainly remember the feeling of satisfaction that came with it. The relief that you feel when you decide to live in the moment can make you quite light headed. So why don't more and more people embrace this feeling? The answer is that its too easy and we as human beings are wired to always believe that if it isn't hard then there must be something wrong. So we slog through our days doing things the hard way just to pat ourselves on the back at the end of the day feeling like we have accomplished something. Just ask yourself this question today: what is that feeling of accomplishment worth?
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Through The (Looking) Glass...

I should start off by explaining that without my glasses I am practically blind, hazy shapes and fuzzy colours are about all I can see! So a few days ago, just to experiment I decided to not wear my glasses for an entire bus journey and just get a glimpse of the world without my glasses, the result was pretty damn amazing. The entire irritation arising out of endless traffic jams was wiped out to be replaced by a moving portrait swiftly changing before me. Streetlights resembled yellow pools of light suspended in the air and the long row of these lamps almost seemed like a pathway to the heavens. Lower down on the ground, all I could see were yellow pinpricks of car and bike headlights zooming past and only shadowy images of the actual vehicles and their occupants. The green of the trees by the side of the road somehow looked more sinister than usual and the sky dark and looming. The buildings were only identifiable by the colours of lights in the windows, shining blues and yellows with the occasional bright white of a hoarding on the roof. Things like gates, walls, railings, speed breakers, potholes had absolutely no significance for the simple reason that they just could not be seen. The shops on the other hand for the large part were so brightly lit with so many different colours that they caught the eye without me even knowing what I was looking at! I played a game with myself to see if I could recognise all the familiar landmarks and I did but they looked so different that it was almost like another world altogether. This entire experience made me wonder at how life is full of surprises. I had never before bothered look around me without my glasses except in the familiar terrain of my own home and here I was having spent an hour looking at the outside world and feeling like 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'.

The world is a funny place, it shows you new things when you least expect them. Just goes to show that we should always keep our eyes and mind open lest we miss out something that could be of great value to us. No matter where we are in life, there is always something new waiting for us just around the corner, a new opportunity, a new perspective, a new direction, a new relationship, a new challenge and the list goes on! Just like I could never have imagined that I could see anything worthwhile without my glasses, most people spend their life imagining that this is it, this is all my life will ever be. You have to take the time look around and see things you have never bothered to look at before or look at old things with fresh eyes. The 'things' here could be anything really, that's the beauty of it, the world is your own backyard the minute you decide to see it as such! There is nothing we cannot achieve if we put our heart, mind and soul into it. So any obstacles standing in our path are nothing but excuses to keep living in our comfort zones. So think about it, open your eyes and find that something new in your life today, seize the day and trust me it will be worth it. Cheers!
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Pointless Things To Ponder About...

Just yesterday I was thinking of the most pointless things to ponder about. It started off with seeing a facebook status which was contemplating whether the batmobile is air conditioned! After that there was no looking back. Here are some of the things that I have pondered about since then:

1. How the best suicide hotline would be the Domino's Pizza hotline!

2. How in TV series, they always seem to remember the exact number of years ago something happened (in graphic detail mind you), they never even have to stop and think about it!

3. How we think that frantically charging the phone for 5 minutes before rushing out of the house will make any difference to the almost dead battery!

4. How trees grow upwards since ideally gravity should be pulling them down!

5. How they almost never seem to talk about basic bodily functions in thrillers! Its like the entire story takes place without anyone needing to use the loo!

6. How Iron Man created a whole new element without telling anyone! The least he could've done was to have added it to the periodic table :P

7. How Star Trek has only english speaking people! I mean think about it, they have a translator for every other alien language in the universe but you never hear any other language from planet earth!

8. How the staff at big hotels are such snobs! I mean what have they got to judge us with, its the hotel that's grand not them!

9. How Rajnikant jokes have taken everyone by storm and shows no signs of stopping. So much so that this is the joke going around now:

A frustrated message from Rajnikant to all

"Saalo ek limit hoti hai.. yeh kaun likh raha hai ki Rajnikant chawal khata hai aur piche se idli nikalti hai'' :)

And now since Rajni has been mentioned, nothing else can top that. So I shall stop my pondering now. Feel free to add anything you might have pondered about lately :P

Cheers!
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Sunday Evening

The Sunday evening drew slowly to a close. The pale yellow light from lamp on the table by the far corner shed its warmth all around. The pool of light illuminated a divan with a couple of books thrown around, the newspaper and its assorted supplements, the television remote, a pair of glasses and a mobile phone. On the table where the lamp stood was pile of old newspapers with an ashtray for a paperweight, a landline phone with its dust cover. Across the room, in the corner by the window was a study table overflowing with photo albums stacked haphazardly. The huge french windows were open, inviting in the gentle evening breeze making the curtains flutter lazily. In the armchair next to the divan, angled towards the T.V. was the evidence of human existence in the room: a very squashed cushion! And as the T.V. churned out its usual volley of advertisements, the Sunday evening drew slowly to a close...
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