Love You, Goodbye.

Recently I read a book that enchanted me. I fell in love with it. So naturally I read it again. That led to me finding out, more so realizing, a lot and I thought I will write about it as well.

We all have relationships that ends after a while. When I say relationships it includes every type that exists adding to the romantic ones. Like a college classmate with whom you never really hung out but spoke your heart out in the campus. That might have been one of the things you looked forward to everyday. But the same connection is not felt once the college is over and eventually you tend to forget all about it. Have you wondered why? I have too. The loss of contact doesn’t mean the past didn’t mean anything. It’s just that time and distance does that to people.

There’s a kind which is possible mostly in a romantic relationship. Starting something that you know will end. You may meet someone in the most unexpected moment and cross lines that you shouldn’t have. If you are someone like me, then you won’t be counting the number of days left, you’ll be planning to make the memorable. If you’re the other type, then you’ll just worry about what is going to happen when it ends. You choose to cross that line because that person would have made your heart skip a beat or stop your universe for a second, every time you see them. Knowing that someone can’t be your endgame and yet trying to create a memory for a life time. And the heartbreak you feel even after 20 years just by thinking about it and the hate you have towards yourself for wanting them even after 20 years.

This reminds me of a few lines from the poem “An Eye, Open” by Paul Celan.

Aching depth of the eyeball:

the lid

does not stand in its way, the lash

does not count what goes in.

The tear, half,

the sharper lens, movable,

brings the images home to you.

There are also consequences for yielding into “one last time”. The people who meant the most once will cease to exist in real life except in our memories. Memories fade too. There’s also losing a best friend because of a silly fight or a weird conspiracy and then wondering were they even your friend? That one uncle in the family who is never invited to anything, though everyone talks about him not being invited. Biding good-bye to someone after a lot of crazy fun and fights for some time, because after a while you realized that it was more about their fun and not your’s. Moving on from those good byes are the hardest. And the most difficult separation? when two of you best friends break up after being relationship goals for years and you have third wheeled them forever, you can’t choose one of them. It’s like you also went through a breakup somehow and realizing that the three of you won’t be together in the same room anymore in this lifetime. It sucks.

Apparently all this is called life and it happens for a reason; We should look forward and keep moving on. This is what I found out from reading that book. Biding goodbye to people we love is life? I can probably never come to terms with this. But that can’t be avoided right?

My Weirdest Dreams!!

What Was I Thinking!

What was I thinking,

When I thought I could fly to the moon,

When I thought I could actually find the grandma working in the moon,

When I thought ET was going to stay back,

When I thought I could play with fire,

When I thought the thorns in the roses won’t hurt me,

When I thought taking a pencil box designed with the alphabets to my 1st grade exam was not a mistake,

When I  thought bitter guard was going to taste yummy because my mom said so,

When I thought my 2nd grade bff was going to be my best friend forever,

When I thought falling off a bicycle was cool,

When I thought no one can break my heart,

When I thought that every story was going to have a happy ending,

When I thought finding love was very easy,

When I thought the “match” was actually made in heaven,

When I thought forgiving was an act, at ease,

When I thought Stephen Hawking could actually solve the mysteries of the universe,

When I thought I could see the stars at 6 pm,

When I thought I could eat my way out of mind fucks without becoming fat,

When I thought listening to “hey mickey” at 2 am was going to help me sleep,

When I thought Jesse and Celine would meet after 6 months on December 16th to declare their love,

When I thought the promise of forever would actually last for ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love, Is It A Real Thing?

I have never been in love till now.

So I do not know how it feels,

To want to keep seeing the same person,

To want to wake up next to the same person,

To want to listen to an awful song because that person loves it,

To want to share the last bite of my pizza with the person, and

To want to live with that person, for the rest of my life.

But, I’ve read a fair amount of romantic novels that described all the love in the world that exists in various forms. Were those type of loves real? mostly not. But the ones that explained love in its natural state were painful to read. Surprisingly, the people who experience the forever type of love, have no idea on how they found it. Was is love at first sight? Did it grow on them eventually? Did they see their forever person for the first time and thought, “damn! I am going to marry you”? no one ever knows the perfect answer to these questions. It doesn’t make sense right. The most confusing type of love is “Love at first sight”. Did they just saw a person with big, pretty, brown eyes and felt like, that eyes, can see the depth of their soul? Or just thought, “I’d be privileged to wake up next to that cute ass for the rest of my life?” I have no idea. And frankly science says the hormones go crazy when we see a person with features that pleases our brain.

“It’s small features and over sized eyes trigger a hormonal response in humans. It’s autonomic. It’s what keeps us from eating them” – Dr. Christina Yang’s medical opinion on why we find babies so darn cute, Grey’s anatomy.

If babies can have such an effect on us, a fully grown adult can have more.

That doesn’t characterize love only as a bunch of chemical reactions. May be it explains the initial attraction but a successful relationship needs a lot of work. It requires a huge investment of both the partner’s time and energy. It requires a lot of remembering stuffs, like anniversaries, birthdays, the firsts, the selection of gifts etcetera. It also requires a lot of sacrifices. But choosing to do everything for, say, 20 years and regretting that choice later in life, is not healthy. This type of love that ends up in lots of regret, even in a relationship of few years, is found all over the place. Especially in the modern times. I am not a cynical person with respect to finding love. Like I said, I’ve never been in love let alone in a relationship. But I’ve seen different types of love in my family. My grandmother knows (I’d like to say feel, but knows works as well) the exact time when my grandpa returns home. He usually goes out a couple of times a day and every time when she feels he’s returning back, she’d go to the door and there he’d be. Exact sync. I lived with them for nearly 10 years and you guys, it synced every single time. But my parents have no time to live like that. They spend most of the day in doing something for the kids (my brother and I) or at work. But maybe, they have that sync in their hearts and never express it, at least I’d like to believe so.

When I come to know about divorces, nasty or amicable breakups, the biggest question I get is “how did they decide, all of a sudden, that they hate each other?” What about the promises and vows (in case of a divorce)? If them promises and vows are true then how do they grow apart? How is it possible to want to wake up alone or with a different person, or to commit adultery? Again, the answers are unknown. (excluding the cases of physically, emotionally and mentally abusive relationships and hurtful/hateful ones)

That said, the chances of finding the one true love is not that great. But I believe that every one deserves to be happy. I believe that every one of us has that one person, somewhere in the world. If you are lucky enough to find them, never let go of them.

“When you love someone you just, you… you don’t stop. Ever. Even when people roll their eyes or call you crazy. Even then. Especially then”. – Ted Mosby, How I Met Your Mother.

On that note, I wish every one of you gets the one.

(PS: My love at first sight is coffee (or should I say, love at first sip) and books. There will be a separate blog about it later <3)

Pets <3

I love animals. I was always encouraged to play with animals and taught to be gentle with them. I consider myself very unlucky when it comes owning a pet for a long time. I have had various types of pets but none of them were with me for more than a certain period of time. But they all live in our memories and the plants we’ve planted over them, when we buried them. (also in pictures for the pets who came to live with us in digital age *wink*)

My First Dog:

When I was 3 years old, my father’s friend had a Doberman, who gave birth to some of the cutest puppies ever. My dad got one of the puppies. I was fascinated by the size of the puppy. He was very tiny with cute little brown eyes. His skin was the color of chocolate. He was always energetic and playful. At that time one of my aunts lived with us. She loved the great “Roger Federer” so she named our puppy roger. Other than this I don’t remember much about him. Soon the puppy got very big. He was overpowering everyone in the family except my father. My parents used to tell that he always listened to the commands from me. But I have no idea about that now. Whenever my father is away, my grandparents were put in a position to take care of him, sometimes. (they also lived with us. * Indian joint family*). Since my father is always travelling for work, my grandparents were very displeased when it came to taking care of him. When roger was 8 months old, we decided to give him to a family who could take better care of him. We used to go and visit him every week, but his family moved away. More than me, my parents miss him terribly.

Pingu, The Bird:

When I was in second grade, a bird built her nest in a tree in my house. Not that often we see bird nests in that tree because that tree never blossoms. The bird had two tails. (see picture). They are called Black drongos. The mama bird built her nest and even laid eggs. And then the eggs hatched. The baby birds were adorable. Unfortunately, two baby birds were eaten by crows. Only one baby remained. It was raining one evening when the nest fell down with that one baby bird. We all were outside by some luck. We took the baby in. I in love with a cartoon show featuring pingu, the penguin so I named the bird pingu. My dad and I went to an old iron things store and got a cage for pingu. We arranged something like a bed with leaves and stuff, so that pingu stays warm. We fed him baby food with the help of an ink filler made of rubber. He was so vocal and would squeak every time he sees one of us. Every morning we would take pingu out, keep him in the backyard. He stayed inside the cage because he barely had feathers. So we would oped the door to the cage, his mama would bring tiny worms and insects and feed him. We all would stand around, very close to protect them from the crows. (crows are evil ). After pingu’s breakfast we took him inside. This was the routine every morning and evening. (nature is fascinating!!). Pingu got a little bigger and stronger and yet he couldn’t fly. He was a pro in catching the house flies though. When it was all perfect, on one god awful day, a cousin of mine came to my house. He was playing with pingu. As usual pingu was trying to show off by attempting to catch the damn flies. My idiot cousin thought pingu was hungry and fed him some uncooked rice. The rice got struck in pingu’s throat. We took him to the vet. But pingu was very tiny. There was nothing anyone could do. Pingu died that night. I cried and cried and cried a lot. I called many people who knew about pingu, to tell them about the terrible day. My mother and I had a small, beautiful funeral for him and buried him under a hibiscus plant. When his mama came to visit him next morning, I lost my shit. Mom consoled me by asking me to look out for the new hibiscus flowers because pingu will be in every one of them. I still believe Pingu is sleeping under that plant.

The Birds after Pingu:

I was really upset for a long time. So, my Maternal grandmother got me 5 pairs of colorful “love birds” and a huge ass cage, two weeks after pingu died. They were so small. I loved them all. Feeding and taking care of them was my responsibility. I felt like an adult. ( when we were kids we always wanted to grow up right!). The following happened after two to three months. I still do not understand how the cat got them, but a stray cat ate 2 of my birds in two consecutive days. ( we found the feathers outside the cage). It broke my heart. We planted two more flowering plants next to pingu’s hibiscus in honor of the dead. I decided that I can’t take anymore deaths of my birds. Also these birds grew up fast, they had long feathers and everything. So we took them to a bird sanctuary where they have a huge provision for the domesticated birds to live and fly. (basically a very, very huge assed cage!! ). I released them there and went home happily. A part of me felt like no other bird can replace pingu.

The Golden Fish:

The fish fever came into our house hold when my baby brother was two and a half years old. ( I was in class 5). He was awestruck while seeing a deep-sea program in TV. (not like the jaws, but something like finding nemo ). So my maternal grandmother (yeah, she rocks!) got him a pair of gold-fish. One of them died mysteriously after a few days. The other one mourned and the followed suit. It was so strange. But my grandmother again got a bunch of tiny black and orange fish from the pond. ( now it started getting out of hand and my mother hated it ). After a few days we found one of them dead, outside the tank. This time it was more strange. The next day my brother came running to us to show the “fish dance” to us. He had one of the fish in his hand. Luckily we were able to save that fish. Then we explained to him that fish are aquatic. That they can’t breathe outside the water. That they will die if removed from water. Now he started asking about death. He demanded an explanation and wanted to know if mommy and daddy and he could die. (i don’t think he was worried about me 😉 ) Needless to say, all the fish were sent back to the pond the very next day.

The Last One:

We got a white lab puppy when I was in grade 9. The puppy was offered to us by a friend of my dad’s. We loved him instantly. He brought so much joy to us. I named him roger this time as well, in honor of our first puppy. Roger was a ball of love. He made every one happy. He was so calm when others came into our home, if they gave him biscuits. But he had one awesome rule. ” Anyone can come into our house, but no one can take anything outside, even if it belonged to them”. We always carried the guest’s purses and stuff when they were leaving. All my friends loved him. He was a hit in the neighborhood. He was a desi dog by heart. As desi as a dog can get. He loved to wait at the entrance of the kitchen when my mom is cooking. (he was not allowed inside the kitchen). His favorite food from my mom’s kitchen was dosa with sambar. (dosa is a crispy dish and sambar is a gravy eaten very fondly in TamilNadu, India). My mother started making them exclusively for roger without salt and the things that are not good for him. He gave the best hugs. If my brother or I cried, he would bring us his favorite toy or pillows to comfort us. He befriended a passer-by monkey once (there’s a small mountain near my home where monkeys lived. sometimes they come down in search of food). He gave the monkey an apple the first time. Later, monkey visited roger often and got lot more apples. Roger was the best dog you guys. When I was in high school, roger was poisoned by an idiot localite. (we still are not sure about who did that). We were heart-broken. It was so so sad to lose him. Now he’s buried under a coconut tree in our farm. I miss him so very much all the time.

After that I never had a pet. I never wanted to have one either. Pets are so precious. They become a part of our family. They make us happy. Bring us joy. A part of me never recovered from losing roger. He was my favorite family member of all time. And still very angry about what was done to him.

To the people who have pets: You guys are so lucky to have a pet. There is no love like the pet’s love towards their family. Take good care of them.

To the people who don’t have pets: Be kind and gentle to animals. They are so much better than humans.

Animals rock!!!