Posted on by Santulan · 7 Comments

Love is

Not diarrhea  That is right, Love is not diarrhea  Ok, why do you ask that I say this? Because I cannot take it when people left and right are telling me that love just happens. There is no reason behind, love never happens for a reason. You know how the saying goes that shit happens. Love doesn’t happen like that. Love is not diarrhea.OK, you can skip this paragraph for the imagery it may provide. I am sorry for that. I vividly remember what my first conscious memory of diarrhea is. I remember wearing grey shorts and sitting in the front courtyard of my house and reading. I felt a little tingly sensation in my stomach. I felt like I had gas and wanted to fart. I tried, except instead of gas a thick fluid came through. I felt disgusted and ran to the toilet as I felt myself getting moister with every step I took.

Love is nothing like that. Love happens for a reason. When some people told me that love doesn’t happen for a reason I honestly felt like saying “Kids these days, don’t know what love is”! Of course saner sense prevailed when I also thought that since these were my friends, they were not that young or me that old to think or say this. Yes, I understand that the realization that you are in love with someone can be sudden or gradual. It can come out of the blue to you, but the feeling is not baseless.
Yes, you may think that the reason for your love can fail. You love someone for what they promised, and what they could have been but chose not to. Such is not a failure of our reason, but the failure of your loved to reflect the values you seek. Ayn Rand got this right: One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person’s character. And if the person, in whom you wished to see those values come alive, didn’t breathe of them then it is not the failure of your love but of them.
Love is not a sacrifice. You can give up many things in the name of love. If doing something or not having something brings a smile or comfort to the person you love, then it is not a sacrifice. You did it for bringing happiness to your loved, and that mattered to you more than what you did or gave up. You got something in return for what you did.
You can love someone and realize the reason only when you think upon it. But you cannot love someone without a reason. You may have a set notion for the type of person you will love, and when you meet that type of person you will know that this is the person you were searching for. A physical form containing the values you seek. But you cannot have a person you love just like that. Love just doesn’t happen, it happens for a reason.  There are people who end up saying that I don’t know why I loved him/her because they did not base their love on something. You can know of course why you don’t love a person anymore. You thought different of that person before, and now you have reasons to believe that he doesn’t meet them. It is OK  please move on.
You see even diarrhea doesn’t happen without reason. There could be toxins, food poisoning, infections or any different reason for it to happen.
Everyone has a different reason for love.  For some it is the sense of comfort the other person brings to you. It can also be a feeling of security that you can be yourself in the presence of that person that you can be without inhibitions. It can be because of the felling you got once you kissed you would never want to kiss anyone else again. I realized that for me it was a sense of admiration. An admiration for the questions that I had to ask myself, for the reasons she did the things she did, for her courage to live her life as she wanted, for making me realize the difference between who I am and who I wanted to be.
And if nothing else, ask yourself one thing when you think you love a person. What is it that makes you love this person and not someone else? What is it that sets this person apart from the countless others you have met? For if you love this person without a reason, you might as well be loving another stranger in the crowd.
Posted on by Santulan · 7 Comments

(High on) Happiness

Have you ever had one of those days when you are happy? Not just happy, but high with happiness? When things just fall in place, when you meet nice people, eat good stuff, today was one such day.
To recount what lead to this day:
  •  I spent one entire weekend with mom without either of us saying anything stingy at the other.
  • We checked out some houses (we’re house hunting for a new place)
  • Mom made dahi puri for me in the evening. Now dahi puri is unhealthy because I have a sore throat, and the chutney and cold curd would not do me good. But eating unhealthy food is fun and she made it because I asked her to.
  • I spent some wonderful time at ‘The chocolate room’ in Ahmadabad. I had a large black coffee, an almond cold coffee, and a Chocó-chilli sandwich. It was a wonderful sandwich it had chillies and chocolate scrapings in it. The chocolate would clash with the chilly and it was oh-so-good. I got a nice table all for myself and wonderful internet speed to watch some of my favourite anime.
  • I saw this poster while searching for a new poster to buy. It gave me a sense of reassurance, that there is more to me than some of the problems I had recently started thinking on. 
  • On the way to Baroda from Ahmadabad I got a bus that had half the seats empty. I could sit on an entire three seat row all by myself and read. When the bus conductor turned off some of the lights he let two lights on so that I could read. He then got up from his single seat and sat on another empty row seat. Those of you who have travelled by GSRTC busses know of this seat. It is the single seat at the entrance which has handle bars in front of it for people to hold on to while climbing on/off. So when you sit on this seat, you can sink in a little and rest your feet on this handle bar. Such a comfortable position to read in. 
  • The window in front of me was open with a just little tiny gap that let a cool breeze in. The breeze would hit my naked feet and make me feel as if my feet were in a river of flowing cool water. And the best part was that no one complained about it or asked me to shut the window.
  • I thought of two women whom I admire. One is ofcourse this wonderful doting big sister whom I love as much as I can. The other is of course the is B to my A, the Alpha to my Omega, the Sheila to my jawani, the fevicol to my photo. They just cheer me up.
Now my views on god are not that religious. But if there is a god, I would give a nice tight hug. I would tell him to take some time off and come with me for drinks, my treat. I would ask him to listen to this song (Emotional Attyachar (attyachar is Hindi for torture) from Dev D). The song in itself is a sad song; however it has a special place for me. I had gone to watch this movie in a single screen local cinema house because we couldn’t get tickets anywhere else. Now this song has a nice beat to it. When this song came on screen I was just tapping my feet being as reserved that I am. But some guys in the audience just thought “Chuck it” and got up started dancing to have a wonderful time.
So the idea is to ask God to chuck it and not think of the people who are doing all forms of torture in his name. You know take a vacation with your goddess, and go relax and recharge. If you made this world, we gave it shape as it is now. You don’t have to take it on your shoulders.
Today is also an eventful day for another reason. The father of the Delhi-Gang Rape case victim shared his daughter’s name (Jyoti Singh Pandey). He said:

“We want the world to know her real name.

“My daughter didn’t do anything wrong, she died while protecting herself.

“I am proud of her.Revealing her name will give courage to other women who have survived theseattacks. They will find strength from my daughter.”

The word Jyoti is a Hindi word which means light. For some people, this case gives light and heat and casts out darkness and fear. Now I don’t her personally, but I cannot help but feel sorry. That in a free nation, this is the price she had to pay for being free, for just wanting to live her own life. You had every right to live on as you wanted, but a bunch of men thought you wanting to be free was an act of defiance against them, and raped and beat you to a painful death. They and other such people wrongfully believe that just because of being a woman, women have to yield to them as they wish.
I do hope that whether you’re reading this or not, whether we know of each other or not, that you have an equally wonderful day in your life.
Posted on by Santulan

Utopia

Utopia, The word brings a flood of thoughts and imagery to me. For me Utopia is a place and time where everything is seemingly perfect. Where all senses are passions, when being yourself is a joy. I can imagine many such futures.

The wind is blowing against my face and is caressing my hair as I stand on the top of ledge on a beach. I can still smell the sweet fragrance from the bed of flowers behind me, while my eyes feast on the beautiful array of colours that lies there. Rows of plants, flowers and fruits decorate the patch of land. Bees dance around the flowers intoxicated by the essence of the nectar, and tiny furry squirrels run up and down the trees squeaking merrily. The birds fly to their perch and sing songs; their music so touching and lifting that even has the flowers shaking their petalled appendages in rhythm.

I can feel the wind’s gusts as I spread my hands and take a step ahead off the ledge. It’s a big fall and I land on the sands of the beach. I see a figure sitting there running her hands in the foam of the oncoming waves. She turns and smiles at me and waves me over. I walk towards to my love. She’s beautiful. Her long brown locks come down in curls near shoulders and go all the way to her waist. The sparkle in her deep green eyes is followed by mysterious blinking of her eyes. As we get nearer she gives me a mischievous smile and splashes water on my face. The cool water hits me and as if it were a carrier of her contagious mischief I start splashing water on her too. She gets up and rolls in to my arms. Her essence is invigorating and I slide my arms around her waist pulling her towards me. We stare in each others’ eyes and something takes us over and we kiss, her moist, soft lips providing comfort to me. She smiles and we sit down and let the waves drench our bodies, enjoying every wave together as it comes.

Utopia is a world I believe that cannot exist, or rather we as humans do not deserve. We are way too diverse, too different to achieve it. Everyone has their different views and if those are different than the ones we have we tend to despise them. All of a sudden what matters more is the colour of the skin, the god we pray to, the place where we were born, or with whom we want to go for a hump ride and not the fact that we are all god damned humans. Instead of being amazed by the diversity of abilities we can exhibit we tend to turn against each other for those differences. I can imagine a one man, one rule, and one empire scenario. A situation where one individual or a set of individuals control the world. But then won’t it be forced on those who choose to differ and again that would be no different than tyranny or dictatorship. How about a no rule scenario? Total freedom would lead to total anarchy. With freedom comes order, something we as a species tend to lack. And we have a problem with authority. Whenever someone rises, good or bad, wrong or right people get ready to make them fall. We have turned the very blessings of knowledge and choice in to curse. We have knowledge, and we continue to significantly add to it, but not to excel. We make choices and more recently we tend to make the wrong ones, well at least the ones that make the most damages.

I know I sound hypocritical for the very least, may be even a bit of a misanthrope. Better embrace the reality than deny it. It’s a dream that is used as hope that someday we will survive ourselves, our choices, and our very root nature.

So yeah, I was supposed to write my little bit about Utopia here. I did start off with the little utopian dream of mine but then it got me thinking, and I got another dream, a coin flip should you say. Utopia is a vision, a dream of a perfect or near perfect reality. If we are to make Utopia a reality if not for ourselves then at least for our children and theirs we have a long way to go. I’ve always believed in miracles. It’s only a miracle that today I am writing this, and you are reading this. Let’s hope for a big one.