One million candy cables

Relationship.. When I was little, I used to feel that this word conveyed something very profound. Something that had to be rigorously maintained and kept to word like some sort of a pinky promise. Something related to blood-and-kin. It was only later that I realized that a relationship is nothing but a bond. A bond between two hearts. Dim-witted as the statement sounds, most of us are oblivious of the fact that bonds are not that easily formed.

How do you know you are actually connected to someone? When you close your eyes and realize that you actually "give a damn" as to what they do, when your heart glows in their jubilance and aches in their woes, when a prayer touches your lips whenever you think of the hard time they are going through and when you feel unhappy as they seek disappointment in their endeavors. That's when you know that you are connected. But still, we tend to cloak our genuine affection in a false garb of kinship. In that way, loving your chacha-chachi-foofa-foofi becomes a duty. Which reduces a relationship to a mere duty, which it certainly isn't.

There's a dialogue from the show "The Big Bang Theory" that I find really humorous. It is a conversation between Penny and Leonard. 

Penny: How did Raj and Howard become friends with Sheldon?

Leonard: I don't know! How do carbon atoms form a benzene ring? Proximity and valence electrons.

Listening to it makes me giggle and wish relationships were that simple. In my life, every relationship is unique and nourishing  in its own way. From my baby cousin who asks me earnestly, "Does a shark eat an octopus or does an octopus eat a shark?" to the biggies who ask with concern, "What do you plan to pursue in your life?", everyone means a lot to me and I can't even imagine my life without them.

                                                        Life is topsy-turvy. Some people enter your life like a tornado and surprisingly end up pacifying and stabilizing it instead. They teach you to deal with rejection and encourage you to brush the dust off and begin afresh. People who have "been there and done that", stand by your side, making sure you take up the right track. Some choose to be brutally honest and some prefer not to demoralize you. You always have a shoulder to cry on, a hand to tickle you to laughter, a finger to wipe your tears, a shadow that walks side by side and a voice that says "I will love you no matter what". 

So, what is a relationship actually? It is something that stands unbattered against the blows of time, distance and misunderstandings. A relationship is fabric knitted with love and embroidered with experiences, good and bad. Pulling out a single thread has the potential to dismantle the entire fabric but it can always be woven back as long as the love remains. 

Always give your relationships the highest priority, never prioritize them. Whether it's your disobedient puppy or an annoying aunt or some Parnani-ki-bhanji-ka-pota, cherish every relationship that has made you feel blessed. 

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Leaping high

The water was gleaming with the reflection of the deliciously round moon and the bright lights parked at the edges of the swimming pool.  I dipped my toe in the water gently, feeling its lukewarm temperature. I was debating whether or not to dive in. I wasn’t much of a swimmer that time, so I stood there, in a dilemma. My friend had sprained her hip a couple of days ago, attempting to dive in a wrong posture. Eventually, I climbed down the steel ladder and made a lame dip at the pool. There were little kids shrieking at the top of their voices and jumping in the pool merrily. A moment later, I questioned myself, “Why did I not take the plunge?”

There are so many moments in life, when you feel like doing something, but never do it, fearing rejection or failure. Before beginning to write this, I asked few people a common question, “Are you a risk taker or do you play safe in life?” Very surprisingly, every one gave the same lame answer “Depends on the circumstance!” I do not blame them for not being able to give a lucid answer, because the truth is that most of the time, we unknowingly play safe.

When you see a man raising his voice against someone smoking in a public place or, a guy proposing to a girl by singing loudly in a park or, an Indian girl bringing her boyfriend home to introduce him to her parents or, a Saas bluntly shouting at her Bahu “Oh Savitri! Itna kharch karegi tho dheere dheere mere bête ko barbaad hi kar degi”, then… knock knock, you my friend, are watching a Bollywood movie. Conventionally, such stuff doesn’t happen in the real world. Most of us lack guts to take the plunge.

Why so? Because, the first question that pops in the mind is “What will they think?” This “they” play major roles in our life. We weigh every decision of ours based on how we think “they” might interpret it. My chachi thinks mushroom is non-vegetarian, so I won’t eat it or my nana thinks that all doctors do is cutting stomachs, so I don’t wanna be one. I am just giving silly examples but we actually take many solemn decisions of our lives looking through someone else’s glasses, using someone else’s perspective.

I don’t mean to say we must act like complete daredevils and take irrational decisions. All we must do is think about the consequences of our decisions on a bigger scale. “What is the worst that can happen?” and “What is the best that can happen?” are two questions that must run parallel in our minds.

Life is too short and valuable to be spent in regression. Our dreams transmute rapidly, failure voraciously waits like a devil on the doorstep, success plays “hard to get” and opportunity knocks only once. So go ahead, stretch yourself up and take the plunge.

 “Life’s a climb, but the view is good” - Miley Cyrus

Shades Of Monotone

What is Grey? Just a color? Yes.....But, is that all? No.

Grey is the state of our lives. While there's a ray of white light shining far away, there's always a black hole of disappointment, waiting to suck us in. And in this tug of war between white and black, enters grey, like a monkey succeeding in snatching the cake from the cats. It seems like a farfetched comparison but, we often don't even realize it happening as we get slowly stranded in a grey state. The state of renunciation. You don't know if you are happy, you don't know if you are sad.  You are too scared to be either of them, you end up convincing yourself with something intelligible, and Bam! You are all grey-ed out.

And amidst this conundrum, you go gaga! To patronize oneself, or to not patronize oneself, that, is "now" the question. Grey is a situation which leaves you mentally paralyzed, as in helpless. You can only run till your lungs burst. In the end, there is not guarantee if you'll end up basking in sunshine or peeing in the dark. Grey 

is not something perennial, it is transitory. But it can leave wounds that may exist till a long time.

So how do you combat a grey situation? Many people have different ways:-

a) By procrastinating the act of dealing with the "oh-so-terrible" issues.. (Great)

b) By moping over it. (Doesn’t matter, still leading the same friggin way)

c) By being the sick optimist, always ready to defy the situation with daggers drawn. (Stop dreaming, you win-win guys)

NO matter what you do, what's going to happen is going to happen. So, instead of doing the above, try believing. Try imagining being sucked by the black hole. Live in the black hole. You'll definitely end up lighting a lamp there. Something dynamic is definitely better than something stagnant, right? Everything except grey is dynamic. Shahrukh Khan had said in Om Shanti Om, "Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho tho sari kaynath tumhe usse milane ki koshish mein lag jati hai". So, the best thing to do during a grey situation is to believe, to trust and to wish. I heard that's tax - free nowadays. Even Cinderella got her palace, Om became an actor and got his Shanti, and I assume Romeo and Juliet must've met at heaven again. The End. Pull down the curtains of joy and indulge in believing in a happy ending. 

From upbeat to harmony

One word.  Music. I am empowered. Music is one of the most gorgeous elements of summer. I’ve got this absurd delusion that my ears get more capable of hearing during summer as the air is clearer, less promiscuous. The summer winds are deluged with tunes, as birds banter around chirping merrily, women keep clanking their cookware, the jocund rhythm of the garden sprinklers and the gentle rustling of leaves. These tunes arouse emotions, make me nostalgic, give me frequent déjà vus and make me sad. This roller coaster of emotions takes over my iPod as well, when a variety of songs with completely different moods occupy a single playlist. There’s one tune that’ll keep haunting my mind throughout the week! And it’ll follow me wherever I go irrespective of whether it’s an examination hall or a bathroom. And sometimes few songs make me very restless.. Like I really want to shout out to somebody how awesome it is.. So, I’ve decided that I am gonna shout it out right here.. I don’t like rating songs and all. IT’s very unfair I think. Every song is remarkable in its own way. So here are those songs I’ve been listening for a month or two that are just so good that they have been distracting the hell outta me.

•        Gone Gone Gone by Philip Philips – I’ve been hearing this since quite a while but when it was played as the bg score for an Andrew Garfield scene in The Amazing Spiderman 2, that’s it, I got sold big time!  Now, I am head over heels crazy about it.

•        Tera sukoon ya junoon ( Title track of beintehaa): This song is not much popular but I love everything about it. While listening to it, I am incapable of doing anything with the exception of getting lost in the fabulous melody of the song, relishing the lyrics and visualizing Zain and Alia (the protagonists of the soap). It literally screams out romance with every word.

•        Ishq duaa ( Beintehaa bg score): Yes, I am obsessed with the show but more with the music. The slight sufi edge, the taans, the frolic gives a beautiful vision of dupattas flying in the air, fishes swimming in the ocean, sunflowers swaying and everything that is filmy.

•        Khudaaya tu bata (Shanghai) by Shekhar Ravjiani

•        Beat it - by Chris Brown, Sean Kingston and Wiz Khalifa. It’s right on top of the list. Bang on awesome music.

•        Heart attack – By Demi Lovato – Powerful.. Whenever I listen to this song, it feels like something is rising within me along with Demi’s pitch. I just love the way she pronounces everything so sharply and gets very vigorous with every line, like she’s putting her heart and soul in every word. It’s not at all a regular song. I love the innovation. It’s not like a  “I saw something, I got inspired,  wrote it down, got my guitar down and started humming it” kinda song  . This song is just bursting with energy at every syllable.

•        Counting stars – BY One republic – I just like it. Just-just-just like it. I’ve been trying to search for a reason. I failed.

•        “State of grace”, “You belong with me”, “Red” and “15” by Taylor swift – The lyrics are very good. There’s a flow and meaning in the songs. I actually cannot hate any Taylor swift song because I think she’s very honest and forthright in her songs. It’s a package of spectacular voice+tune+lyrics.

•        Yaar indha salai oram – ( Thalaiva) BY G.V Prakash and Saindhavi – It’s too sweet for words. This duet is fabulous. It makes me wanna dance ballet. It’s made for a fairytale.

•        Kadhal ennulle (Neram) By Renjith – I can’t understand the lyrics much but there’s a very docile edge to this song that I really love. It goes on and on. It feels like a pleasant morning.

•        Nagada (Ramleela) By Shreya Ghoshal – I am a die hard fan of both Shreya and Dipika and this combination is what draws me to this song!.

•        Acapella – By Karmin – It’s hilarious. It’s a slow rap, very boldly sung.

•        Duaa (Shanghai) – I’ve heard it millions of times as a bg score but just recently got to hear it completely. The best track to plug in when your spirits are at low ebb. 

Go multilingual!

"Bhagwaanji! Pleasee aj ka din, ekdam mast, jhakkaas, aur khushiyon se bhara din ho. Mai jo bhi wish mangoon aj, puri kar dena aap!" Oh Yes! These are the exact highly intellectual and to-the-point words I use while praying early in the morning as soon as I wake up... I mean come on! I can't go all “Oh dear lord Ganesha! Bless me with trinkets of wisdom, give me the strength to defy all hindrances and let everything be very auspicious as I embark upon this wonderful day!" In the morning, when my brain's not working, I tend to frame my thoughts using the most colloquial words. They just pop outta nowhere. It is said that most of the people think in their mother tongue or the language which they are more familiar with. But in my case, I am not really sure which language that is.

Being born in Tamil (pronounced as Tamizh) Nadu, and brought up in Maharashtra, I was exposed to two contrasting cultures constantly. Additionally, I live in a society that exhibits a blend of all the states of India. People of all languages exist here. Everyone play dandiya during Navratri and merrily attend Thalapoli and bhajanais during ayyappa pujai. So, having at least two friends of each language of India, gave me a crazy yet not-so-crazy fantasy to become a multilinguist. As a kid, the first language I learnt was Marathi, followed by Hindi and Tamil (pronounced as Tamizh). And, very surprisingly I pulled off all the three beautifully. None of the accents seemed to cut in through each other. I was not a “Mereko indiii thoda thoda aati" kind of South Indian. Nor was I an "onnuda perundaaa" kinda Maharashtrian. I freak out on listening to such accents.

There are many people around me who share the same shoe as me, being South Indians, growing up in what is considered as North there. Some are too much inclined towards the culture they are exposed to everyday, stumbling upon Tamil words, complaining constantly about having to eat idli and sambar every week, sulking every time when a Tamil programme is being watched at home or lying to their friends "I don't understand a word of Tamil, you know! I wonder how they even manage to speak it! So complicated". These set of people; teens especially, try very hard to mix in with what's around them and deliberately choose to turn a blind eye towards their ethnic roots.

There exist another set of people who are quite the opposite. Such south Indian girls are easily spotted in school as they are the only ones with the long, finely oiled braids, sporting a bindi and a broad line of chandanam on their forehead, wearing gold earrings and maybe a nose pin too. They have a slight Tamil accent in HIndi and enjoy watching Tamil soaps with their grandparents. They ignore the tag "aunty" given to them at school and march off feeling that "Lajja aur sharam aurat ke sabse keemti gehne hote hai”... OK perhaps the same dialogue in Tamil!

But I do not belong to either category of people. I love Ilaya Thalapathi Vijay as much as I love Shahrukh Khan. People find me whistling equally hard at both Hindi and Tamil movies. I feast upon dosa and chapatti with equal greed. I am proud of being a Tamilian. I neither flaunt nor look down upon my culture. I generally speak a mix of Hindi, Tamil and Marathi at home, conventionally phrasing a sentence as “Amma, enaku ekdam laukar laukar khana tha" . (Mum, bring me food very fast) . Yeah, this is a very frequently used statement at home. So,I think the beauty of a language lies in its accent and the beauty of adapting a culture lies in the flexibility with which you do it.

And wait, I am not boasting about trying to become multilingual by just being able to speak three languages. I am trying hard to improve at Telugu and Malayalam. After I am done dealing with them,maybe I'll turn over to Gujarati and Punjabi. Seems like a very long way to go but you know, I've already started whistling for Mahesh babu, Nagarjuna, Naga - chaitanya and all...