Fairytale Love Stories

My formative years were spent in a beautiful boarding school, where friends are the cynosure of your life.. We spent all our times together, having food fights, water fights, playing all night and just being normal girls. This was the age when most of us fell in love for the first time.. 

Falling in love the first time meant, looking shyly across the prayer hall at each other, bunking class to be together.. And most importantly writing letters to each other... (Mobiles and Laptops were not yet necessary in life back then and not allowed) And writing love letters was an art.. An art accomplished by a group collectively. So anyone had to write a letter, all the girls (6 of us) would come together and write down those beautiful and innocent words, that escape us today.. And we would quietly slip the letters into our love's bags and wait for the reactions and love letters back as responses... And thats how our brief first loves were.. Dreamy, innocent and full of expectations. School farewell came and we promised each other that we'll always love one another come what may, cried painful tears and most of those love stories ended and all we grew up!!

Most of us fell in love for real.. Things became quite different... All those innocent little things we did seem so long ago and so trivial.. We aren't playing hide and seek across the prayer halls or blushing so often as we did then... We don't imagine a fairytale story anymore. We are aware of the fact that life may not give us a chance of living our lives with the same person, maybe we'll part ways somewhere down the road and if, fortunes smile on us, shall actually live happily ever after... 

What remains the same is that, we still haven't given up on Love just yet.... Somewhere we still are the children, we left behing.. Searching for the Eternal Love Story that reads " And they lived happily ever after.."

** Image Courtesy my.opera.com

My oldest friend - Urvashi

"Joh bhi hota hai, ache ke liye hota hai" (whatever happens, happens for the best) 

Life is like a puzzle. Its pieces don't make sense but the whole picture is often more beautiful than we can ever perceive. I have made a few most important friends of my life like that.Its amazing how the 5W and 1H formula ( a journalism jargon) never seems to work in stories of our lives.

I must have been in 6th grade and as usual was kicked out of class because of unfinished homework. And another class-mate, Urvashi was kicked out for the same reason I guess. Now we both had been together in the same class since 1st grade but never talked. But after a while boredom caught on (what would happen if you gotta stand outside class for one whole hour!!) so I asked her to play with me. Thumbs Up was the game. We had to stamp on each others feet and well, it did provide some solid pass time for us both. And then came the teacher. Needless to say she caught us, screamed at us and eventually made an example of us both in front of the whole class. 

But we both didn't seem to care. We had forged a bond (while stamping each others feet). The friendship was turning more solid as the years passed by and there were and are times when our laughter and tears couldn't be distinguished one from another. We passed out of 10th grade and I went away to Banglore to study further. It was a new life, new friends and whole new world but yet when I came back home (Ahmedabad), she was right there. Same old girl, who had changed but yet had remained the same Urvashi I knew.

Be it my crazy bouts of anger or cooking, she always has and I suppose, always will endure it in the same manner that she always has. Calmly, sweetly and with a tinge of sarcasm and idiosyncrasy! But it isn't just the horrendous mood and food that she puts up with. Urvashi has been there for me on the darkest hours of my life, supporting me and sometimes carrying me (not literally) through them. She has sometimes made sacrifices, that my own siblings wouldn't have made for me. But that is what Urvashi always does. She strengthen me.

I have been blessed with such amazing friends. And Urvashi has been one of those blessings to me!

Give Peace a Chance

I find many interesting pieces of information and thoughts from my favourite comic strip - Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.Calvin (6 year old boy) and Hobbes (Calvin's stuffed tiger and best friend) often discuss issues like global warming, after-life, existence and politics. 

Simple yet effective. Make love not war. Why do we fight if both sides will end up getting hurt?

How quaint the war is. I shot the enemy soldier down. He was pointing is gun at me and I at him. My bullet went first and pierced his heart. The same fellow, had I met on a train or in a bar, would have helped him for money or bought him a drink and sang jolly songs. But we fought, for saving the nation's pride, for justice and ironically for peace without realising that the bullet that pierced his heart is the same that will pierce mine and that there is a woman waiting for me and for him. 

When I reach home, how will I meet eyes with hers? My gun left someone else's world dark. How will I be thankful to Lord for saving me, when i know that I killed his other children to survive? Will I be able to explain my children that peace is the ideal way of living, when their father, I found fighting a war much easier than exercising peace?

May I Feel

e.e Cummings (its not a typing error! He preferred writing his name that way), an American poet and playwright, is noted mostly for his romantic poems.I discovered him, by chance, when I saw the movie "In her Shoes" (2005) where the female lead says one of his poems ' I carry you in my heart' and instantly googled him. Most of his poems had this beautiful description of love and gentle feelings, and do not follow any traditional patterns of punctuation, grammar or style. And then I stumbled upon a poem, that was quite unlike him. It was naughty and funny.And he had written it back in 1930's !!

The following poem always makes me laugh and is quite unique, even in today's times when we are 'open minded'. It is a conversation between a man and a woman having a secret liaison. Can you? Ofcourse, go ahead and read..

 MAY I said he - e.e.cummings

 may i feel said he

(i'll squeal said she

just once said he)

it's fun said she

 (may i touch said he

how much said she

a lot said he)

why not said she

 (let's go said he

not too far said she

what's too far said he

where you are said she)

may i stay said he

which way said she

like this said he

if you kiss said she 

may i move said he

is it love said she)

if you're willing said he 

(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he 

but your wife said she 

now said he)

aww said she 

(tiptop said he 

don't stop said she 

oh no said he) 

go slow said she 

 (cccome?said he 

ummm said she) 

you're divine!said he 

(you are Mine said she)

Consoad - A Poem on Death

This is a Spanish poem so the literal translation might not be possible but it captures the very essence of the poem. "My day was good, let night fall" The metaphors used Day for Life and Night denoting the final closure – Death, sound so peaceful and so scenic. The whole poem has this very real feeling to it. I can imagine a wise man in that house staring out in that field, quite and content, reminiscing his life time.

Consoad by Manuel Bandeira

When the Unwanted Guest arrives…

I might be afraid.

I might smile or say:

My day was good, let night fall.

You will find the fields ploughed, the house clean,

the table set,

And everything in its place.

This poem often strikes me when I cross this place for cremation on the way to my college. And every time I pass that place, I say a silent prayer.. “God bless the departed.. and bless those who mourn the departed” and i think of all the dear ones I have lost. Of all the moments I have had with them, what it would have been like if they were still around. It is a chain reaction I think that we all have to think of the ones dead when we pass a place of death and remember what they were.

I remember my Dadi (grandma) and my Mamu (uncle).. How I used to hold my Mamu’s shirt and walk around when I was scared or how I used to act being sleepy while getting out of the car, just to be held by him. I remember my Dadi and I sleeping on the terrace on summer nights, listening to stories about Krishna in her soft sleepy voice. And I remember playing with her in the moonlight. And I wish they were here to see me. To let me take care of them as they took care of me. But they went expected and unexpectedly because it was their time and that this life is my journey without them.

What matters in the end what matters to me is that when I close my eyes and do remember their lifetime, I see all the good they have done, the laughter we have shared and the love that was showered upon me. And I thank them and God that I do have my other loved ones near me so that I don’t ever miss out on the chance.