Introspection.

Dear Alice,

It’s not very often that I find myself in this place where words verbalized are disastrous for the lack of any deliberation over their form. When I do, I prefer the medium of pen and paper to carefully craft the words that I lack the ability to remember when the moment to say them arrives. And therefore, I am writing you this letter in the hope that when we do talk, neither of us is smitten by the power of a breaking heart or the guilt of breaking one.

I frequently find myself hoping that we could start all over again. Introspection in all its honesty has the ability to mature one’s conception of himself. “We succumb to the alien because of our pre-existing sense of alienation. It isn’t what we feel that’s the problem. Perhaps, it’s what we deny ourselves that is.” These words ring in my memory in the sound of your muted analgesic deliberations. Did I ever tell you that when my heart is sinking for some unfathomable reason, I find myself desperately searching my memory for the sound of your quiet hummings, the tranquillity of your breath, the stillness of your demeanour, and the strength of your compassion? How did you find your existence beyond your being? Is it possible? Or did I rob you of your willingness to try? I find that I want to talk to you about everything once more because introspection in all its honesty is a revelation of our denials, our escapism, of our truth and how we perceive it in our distorted notions of morality.

Say I were to meet you again, what would I say? Introspection in all its honesty plunders us of justifications for good intentions, leaving in its wake the realization of our loss and the impossibility of retrieving it with all we have left to offer-an apology. Would it suffice to slip back into the rhythm of your breath and the tranquillity of your sighs, the intoxication of your voice and the maze of your mind?

All my love,

The Mad-Hatter

Photographs.

We've never had a picture together. I've never caught a moment that we've witnessed together in the stillness of a photograph. Now that i think of it, I can't even conceptualize a photograph that can contain us. And that has made us the most beautiful secret I've ever known.

I've never caught a moment that we've witnessed together in the stillness of a photograph but I've captured every moment that you and I have ever seen as one. I captured the rocks whereupon you first kissed me and that feeling of firsts. I captured words of the first poem you wrote me - the only poem you wrote me - and the last letter you posted to me - the only letter you posted to me. I captured the tunes you played so absently when we were only just talking and I captured the moment you'd stop to tell me that you love me. But most of all, I captured your words. I captured the words that made our moments because we were words. We were the few words of a perfectly incomplete phrase, punctuated only by a full-stop, complete only in the resonance of an afterthought. I captured the breeze that blew between our few words, and the sun that shone above us. I don't have a picture of any of our moments but I think of you when I talk about anything and everything under the sun, because as far as i remember, that's all we ever talked about. And I captured every such thing under that nostalgic Sun to remind me off days that couldn't be captured in photographs

From the Girl with Pink Glasses

        ... I cannot really address this to anyone. I don't write very frequently anymore. It will probably be a very long time before you hear from me again. For some reason, I have lost my ability to verbalize my thoughts. Or maybe the threads of thought are so knotted that I cannot convey to myself, to you, what I really want to. But this is a simple confession. This is why I'm writing to you. Because, somebody needs to know. Secrets have a way of finding their way out of graves, and there are far too many that I know to be able to rest in peace. 

          He is a good friend. A better friend than lover. Sometimes I wish that's all we were. Because, now, we can never make the best of what we both have to offer. This does not make me sad. Well, maybe it does. But just because I am sad, does not mean I am not happy. For happiness is futile if we haven't seen grief, and it is not happiness if it is meaningless. Maybe this is why it saddens me so much. Because, sometimes, I feel it is meaningless.

In search of meaning and yours truly,

The Girl with Pink Glasses.

set fire to rain

Sometime when I feel this way, I remember the way you used to make me feel and the way you never made me feel.. And I can't decide whether I'm better off without you or not. All I know is that I still crave what you couldn't give to me, and I treasure everything we used to be. 

The Letter.

"A wise man once told me, "We can't change the direction of the winds, all we can do is adjust our sails and try to reach our destination." Sometimes we set sail without knowing where we want to go, where it is that the winds want to guide our ship, and how the storms at sea will treat us. It is in times like these that we learn our most faithful companion is our conscience, our worst enemy a broken will, our best guide experience and our only motivation time and greed.

One day, I too pulled the anchor of my ship, cut the ropes that tied it to the deck and set sail bereft of even the knowledge of the weathers I was going to have to suffer.

Had it not been for that voyage I undertook 17 years ago, you probably would never have had my blood streaming through your veins, and I would never have had to deal with the regret of seeing you shudder at the thought of being the closest anyone can be to another man... A Father to his Son.

Today, I write to you, trying to fulfill the last of those duties I never realized I had. I write to you trying to share some of the few stories hiding in secrecy of a parallel world I now visit only in my dreams. And I beg for this one chance to acknowledge you as my son, for I have longed this chance ever since reality dawned on me...




It was the summer of 1985 when I first saw a glimpse of that pretty lady in Blue. I saw her standing on our new neighbor's balcony, staring into space, smiling occasionally at the pigeons walking around her feet and perched on the clothes' line. Sometimes, I still wonder what it was about her that caught my attention, what it was that shook my world every time I looked her into eyes, what it was that made me smile even when she wasn't around... What it is that still makes her one of the most pleasant memories I can ever have. If there's one thing you should know, it's that I think of her when I talk about everything under the Sun. Because as far as my memory allows, that's all we ever talked about. But unfortunately for most of us, we can never get the things we want, the way he want them because they're not meant to be. We chase one thing after another, feel like we've finally found ourselves a place we'd like to make home with someone who we think we have forever, until one day the dreams we had, the ones whose vividness made them feel like a reality too good to be true, start smudging away like the water colors of a painting under the drops of sudden rain on a beautiful sunny day. But what the weather can't take away is, the longing to bask in the sun and all it's glory and all the happiness that we're brought up to believe it signifies.


I used to think that people come into other people's life for a reason. And I still like to believe that the reason your mother came into mine was to teach me how to be with someone when you know all their flaws. It was the best of lessons learned in one of the 'not so good' ways. As I plunged myself deeper into her mind, I realized it was a beautiful place, filled with questions that I never thought she wouldn't have the answers to. It was a pattern of criss-crosses that depicted the contrasts of her realizations that often only led her to believe that there was no way she could follow something or someone to happiness. As courageous as she was, I could feel her whimper to the thought of being unloved and uncared for. There were times when I could feel her running away and instead of stopping her, I only pushed myself away further, only to realize that all she ever wanted was to be followed by someone who wouldn't keep the promise of helping her retrace her footsteps but would hold her hand to jump across railway tracks to reach the platform that could help her catch the right train home.

We fought, we shouted, we hurled the strongest of words at each other and she, only she cried. Because neither of understood, or maybe we didn't want to be misunderstood. And with every fight we had, those dreams we had together broke, and we only cut ourselves deeper with the crude edges of the glass house that we could never turn to stone. All our lives we learn how to be the bigger person, how to forgive and forget, to let go and move on, to remember and shrug away the hurtfulness of the memories we will always have, and to love and try not to hate. The joke that life makes out of us all is that we keep learning these things time and time again as we try and keep loved ones in our life no matter how many times they falter... But one day, all of us run out of forgiveness, patience, and tolerance. And end up losing the people we thought we would always have, which only leads us to stop thinking about the people that will stay, because in the end the people who're with you, are the ones you never knew you had. And somewhere, that's what happened to me too.

My summer grew cold. Not only had the time to go back to New York  come, but the thought of leaving her behind with all the mess that I wanted to fix, left me desperate to find a solution to all the unhappiness we had created for ourselves. But even in midst of all that I had faith that this love was right, because she could belong to no one else. I had faith that she would never abandon me, because she knew it was my biggest fear. She never felt like family, but I wanted one with her. Somehow, the urge to be happy with her had taken over my wish to be happily married to anyone else.

I was in New York for about a year more. I wrote to her, I wrote for her. I made every promise to come back sooner than she expected and hoped that things would exactly the way they were when I had last held her hand. But how poisonous wishful thinking can be. It makes one hope against hopelessness.


But she was unhappy, and as much as I hated to admit back then, so was I. I found her writing in grief of her worst fears that I had suddenly brought to life. She crumpled her thoughts on loose pieces of paper that eventually found their way to trash cans and fires that she lit as an attempt to make herself believe that she'd taken one step further than she had the last time she saw the black carbon ashes in our favorite corner of the terrace. When I got back, the distance that we thought would do some good to help us realize how much we wanted and needed to be each other only made the brick walls between us thicker. What bothered me was our willingness to break them down, because we thought there were so many things that were better left unsaid. We did try though, but in vain. She was always right about me when she said that I could NEVER let go of things, whether good or bad. And she was right when she told me in the end, that she was sorry that there was so many scars that she had left me. And as much as I wish she could take those scars with her, they're as fresh today as they were years ago... The only difference is that I've learned to live with them. 

In all of this, I don't want you to think that there was never a moment of Joy. Even though there were more bad days than good, the best of days make me smile even today... And as much as I'd like to tell you about them, I think I owe you the reasons for my absence more. 


We try day in and day out to be good people. Some of us live in the fear of Karma, others in fear of losing the people they care about. But all of us try... But they're always those people we can never be good to, for whom we'll always be the bad people, the selfish ones, the insensitive ones.... And we get to live with being their biggest regrets. All of this.. Not because we want to.. But because things just happen whether you want them or not. Maybe your mother was that person to me. Maybe I'm that person to you. "


I crumpled the letter and tossed into the bin. Because he could never know the person I knew my mother to be. 


*To Be Continued* 

To New Beginnings and Perspectives

Just because you're crying doesn't mean you're not happy. It just means that someone makes enough of a difference to your life to hurt you. But if you're exactly what makes them unhappy, let them go. Don't hold on to them, cuz if you really care, somewhere in the midst of all your broken dreams, lost smiles and newly found tears, you'll find solace in the fact that wherever they are, they're happier without you. And as for yourself. Don't lose heart. Because somewhere on the face of this planet, someone is going to come along, and you're going to mean the world to them.

To new beginnings and perspectives. Cheers.

Too Much of Anything...

When closure comes too soon, I wonder whether I miss having that ray of hope that maybe one day, things will be.....but then again, who ever got a second chance at building their faith?

We're all fighting to keep something alive in us. Tragically, it's the only part of us we can't manage to save. Because we're all destined to be someone, to be some way, to do something and to have things happen to us, to make us what we're meant to be.

I might have been able to show others the way, but I can't seem to figure out when I lost my own. I used to be stuck in a whirlpool of memories that would keep me going round and round in the same old circles.....but I know I felt someone pull me out. I know that because for a change it wasn't just a weak tug at the broken strings of my heart, but a force that stretched those tiny strands of feelings I had in me, only to weave them into the happiness I wore over myself for the most unforgettable months of my life.

If there's something you should know, it's that too much of anything can be too much. If I'm sill alive, it's because I didn't have enough time to build the memories that could kill me...

Men are from Mars

My sister has been reading this really popular book on relationships for quite a few weeks now. I'm pretty sure every bloody person on this planet must have heard of it-Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. Out of sheer boredom I picked it up and started reading it today and after going through the first page I came across something that made me want to post it on my blog. MEN PLEASE READ!

"I had always thought of myself as a loving person. But she was right. I had always been a fair-weathered friend. As long as she was happy and nice, I loved back. But if she was unhappy or upset, I would feel blamed and argue back or distance myself."

Men need to be smart like that... Like John Gray. Please go pick up a copy of the book and please read it if you haven't already. The book makes sense. I'm telling you. It's saving me from turning into a sexist bitch who hates men.

Hear Me Out?

I'd left a familiar stranger at the same cross road where I am today. I can feel his presence around me somewhere, or maybe it's wishful thinking. I can still explain the latter, because I want him to know that I finally am aware of how it feels to be misunderstood, to have our intentions misread to the point that every bit of innocence and good that we have in them is forcefully blackened and rubbed onto our wounds that they say we inflicted on ourselves. What scares me the most is that I never wanted to be like him, never wanted to think the way he did, never wanted to be blind like he was. But now, I realize that there's more to it than just that. It's not about being blind, it's about not being able to look in the right direction, to hear the right things or find the right meanings. I've tried to never make the same mistakes, but for a reason I may never be able to comprehend, I find myself ending up battered and bruised, even when I've done the right thing and said the right words.

I've come to realize that best things in life come along with a lot of sacrifice. There will come a time when you will realize that you have let go of your ego so much that you can't decided whether it was the ego you  compromised on or the dignity, pushed your levels of tolerance to the point that you can't tell what frustrates you more-your helplessness, your anger at being wronged, or that you didn't let go before. One day, because of that ONE thing, you won't be able to tell what it was that hurt you more- the fact that you let yourself become so vulnerable or of the consequences of mistakes that you never made. And if you find that all of this wasn't worth it, that it would have been better to let go and move on a long time ago, you've had your final blow.

I was once told that people come into other people's lives for a reason. And being the person I am, I've made sure to learn from every bitter experience that I've had to thorn my way out of. The only regret I have, is that some things change you for life, and I find myself changing into the person I never wanted to be, and whatever the reason be, I don't want to stop the change anymore.

Some things are just best left unsaid....

The Seasons change, and the comforting autumn winds give way to winter. But nothing will ever come close the feeling of that first winter when you left your naked heart out in the cold with nothing but the warmth from the fire in the hearth of love. And the seasons change every year, the winds still carry the memories that hover over your concealed smiles, and the heat of passion is like the lost dreams of summer in a land that's always trying to find the grass beneath it's cover of ice.