Love is addictive

Love is a feeling.
We all have it in our lives in some form or the other.

When you find it in your partner though...that's the love that makes you feel blessed.
It warms your heart.
Brings you peace.
Every breath you take makes you feel engulfed in a warm hug of your beloved.

That love.
That love is addictive.

You want to stay in the haze of it.
Be surrounded by it.

No matter where you are....or what you are doing.
It is ever-present.
Like your breath. It becomes a part of who you are.

Love is a feeling... it is like God... you cannot see it... you can only feel it... it cannot be forced...it can only be felt... you will know when you have it. 

Woman power

All my life I have been told and I am sure many of you have been told growing up. 

“Conceal….don’t feel.”

“Act like a lady.” 

“Behave yourself.”

“Say you are sorry.” 

“Don’t be a drama queen.”

I can go on and on about the things I heard parents tell their kids especially girls. Growing up it all became a part of my psyche. 

As women we have been told to be extra careful and mindful and it gets ingrained in our brains till we start manifesting those voices in our heads as our own thinking. 

My mind reels at all the information I have been handed down and belief system that is actually flawed. It worked for the last generation but evolution is constant and thus it is now necessary to move away from those thinking processes to a more elevated plain of thought. 

As women we are strong, capable and so much better informed. We have the strength to change the world. The power has always resided in us. Thus in many cultures women are revered and Goddesses are offered offerings to please and blessings are asked for.

Then why is it that we as women are the first to gossip? To judge the other woman? To belittle and trivialize their journey? 

We are the foundation of humanity. The power then lies within us build a strong and reliable society on it. 

Where am I going with this? I think women empower women like no one else. 

I was recently at a workshop where after an intense session I found myself emotional and teary eyed. The women around me reached out and helped me. No judgment. They helped me deal with my emotions and understood me. It was empowering. I was grateful for their compassion and love that was sent my way. But the biggest take away for me was how we as women, as a collective are stronger. When we hold each other up. We shine! We all can shine together. 

It’s okay to be emotional, to be vulnerable to be raw. We are allowed to cry. We can tell our kids that it’s ok to cry. We do not have to be brave all the time. 

When our children see us cry. Other women see us cry, they are moved to compassion and there in that moment a bridge is build. A connection. A trust bond. That what vulnerability does for you. Do not be afraid to show who you are. Do not be afraid to let go. Do not be afraid to be sad sometimes.  

All roads lead to love. To more love, connections and the openness of the heart and mind. 

There is a reason in olden days women congregated together and worked through each others’ problems. They supported each other and together they built strong communities. In some cultures women still do that. It has power. Now the question is how do they use this power? 

As the quote goes “With any great power comes great responsibility.” 

Jasbaat

चंद जस्बात-

आँखे झुकालो कहीं तुम्हारा दर्द न ज़ाहिर हो जाये,पलके तब उठाना जब दिल काबू में आ जाये. 

किसी के प्यार में इतना भी मत उठ जाना,की जब दिल के टुकड़े बिखरे तो गिरने की आवाज़ भी न आये. 

Don't let me go

I find myself in a place. A place a lot of us might find ourselves.
Its limbo.
If someone glances into the window of my life it seems perfect.
Yes, everything a person can need to exist is available.
What society perceives as achievement is there.
Yet I find myself swimming in a funk.
It's like I am floating right under the surface of reality.
I know I am underwater. I can hear the loud silences.
I can hear my heart beating in my ears. I know I exist.
I know I want to break over the edge of the water.
As I see the light play on the surface I want to reach over and touch its warmth.
Yet, something holds me back.
What is it?
I don't know. My fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of seeing a new reality.
Fear of changing things as is.
So thus I float. For now. The water is like a glass barrier above me,
between me and the world.
Is that reality better than this? I have no idea.
I have a straw to breathe.
The straw that I hold on to with dear life.
Its the only link between me and my chance to reality.
The only link in the chain that keeps reminding me that I should not
forget that I was once different and things CAN be different someday.
Till the day I can break free...oh dear straw of mine...don't let me go.
I might lose sight and lull myself into false security in this limbo.
You are my touchstone.
Don't let me forget.....and don't ever let me go!

Masks

It is said that we all wear masks... we mask our true selves for fear of discovery.
Behind the masks lie our true natures with facets of lust, fear, violence, anger and such.
There is also facets of vulnerability and pain and such as well.
It becomes necessary I guess, after a while as being your true selves gets one
judgement and ridicules.
Now my observation is not on the masks, that I know exists.
My thoughts are on who taught us to put on the masks and also...when.
All human behaviour is learned behaviour. We are a clean slate when we enter
this world. Then when do we learn to pretend?
The answer in my opinion is since we began talking as a child.
I see parents chide children, this is not right, that is not right.
You cannot say this, you cannot say that.
What are we really doing?
We are conditioning the child to alter their true nature and being themselves
to little minions of us who will follow other minions and dodos and fall off the
face of this proverbial life and Earth.
Years ago a child once called me "Fat". I laughed, I knew she was right. I was overweight and
from her vantage point I would look exactly like the picture depicting "Fat" in her
kiddi books. What was more hurtful was her mom telling her its not polite to say that.
When the child asked why, she said "You know how you do not call a blind person blind or a
mentally challenged person retard you do not call over weight people Fat!"
It felt like I was kicked in the guts.
This is how we teach our children to put on another mask. To be polite.
Do not talk about the obvious.
I as one individual cannot change the entire society and world, but that does not
render me blind. I see the hypocrisy, I see the pretences.
It irritates me to see people with masks on.
That is why , when I  meet someone without one...very rarely but I do
meet some who have chosen not to don the proverbial mask I rejoice.
I get so excited and try to hold on to them. Sometimes quite fervently.
It is refreshing.

But then as no man is an island, so at times only by donning the masks can we walk
the earth and look for the few without them or showing cracks on their masks
so we can reach each other and cast them off together! We now need the masks to
survive the world...and look for like minded individuals with whom we can let the masks slip away!

one step

One step forward and two steps back.

Lying to oneself is easy and to others...even easier. We all have instincts and our instincts tell us when someone is angry with us, when they have shut down , when they are ignoring us and when ...they just don't care. Yes, certainly sometimes we are mistaken and it is not all that sombre. Thus in relationships its like a dance... we take one step towards someone and then retreat two steps, afraid of being hurt or hurting others. Self doubt and second guessing has become my second nature. Which leads me to....

I am confused about myself. The direction where I am headed, my reasons for the things I do and for what is it that I am on this God's green earth to do? To be a mother? To be a friend? To be a wife? To be a worker? To be a writer? To be a painter? To be a cook? I have numerous interests and yet nothing fuels my passions on an on going basis.
I see the judgement in people's eyes. For the longest time people worked hard for women to get education and equal rights. It is still an ongoing battle in some places. Does that not put undue pressure on women who have it and yet want to be something other than a worker bee or just ambitious for career and money? Can't I just want to be me? These existential issues keep coming up and I struggle with them some and then let them go at times. I let go of them and my insecurities until I come across someone again asking me, "Don't you have a MBA?" Does that mean that I HAVE to use my degree? Does that mean I have no other options? Does that not mean that I have that too as an option if I choose it to be?
That then brings me right back to...what DO I want? Which comes back as a resounding "I have no Bloody idea!!!" 

I wonder again...

As we grow and time passes...I am forced to wonder and ponder over this one thing. What is morality? What are ethics? What is right and what is wrong? What is natural and what is unnatural?
Yes, these may be questions that plagued many a philosophers and thinkers. It bothers me too. I wonder about these questions as they come into play on a daily bases in my life and of all that I know.
I was told by one person homosexuality was wrong. I asked "Why do you think that?" The answer, though I do not know why it surprised me, was , "Its unnatural. Nature made man and woman for specific reasons and thus to mate in any other equation is against nature."
I was pained by this view. Yes, it is that person's view point. Yet the narrow thinking pained me. How does one grow older and never evolves? I did try to explain to the best of my ability and yet it fell short and the person turned away, clasping tightly to their archaic view point.
So I think who has placed these views in people? How does one come to the conclusion that one act is right and one is wrong? Who gives them the authority to judge an action, a thought a feeling?
If a married woman/man felt an innate need is not being met , they seize an opportunity if it arose, to fulfill it, will they be considered immoral? Most people are conditioned to believe that society functions in absolutes! Yet, is it? Wrong or immoral I mean? Can a person not love one and yet find a need fulfilled somewhere else? I bet the people who are members of Ashley Maddison might back me up on this! Yet thats what got me thinking on this train of thought. Why is it considered cheating or betrayal? Where does it say by nature we are to be monogamous? Yes, it says so in the the holy books of certain religions. But them who wrote those books? Men! Then it is thinking of certain men that decide what we should think is right or wrong not our own sense of judgement.
Here is what I think, we are born once. We have no idea of what came before or what is to come after. We have been given an individual brain for a reason or else we would have been part of a collective like the Borge. We are meant to take decisions pertaining to our lives, individually. Morality, ethics, right, wrong, natural and unnatural are all relative terms and we have to weigh our options based on personal opinion instead of something handed down by a faceless people centuries ago which hold no sense of propriety in today's time and age. It may have been good for the society at their time as it needed the structure and guidlines as it was evolving. Now we are past that and as evolution continues we need to stop with the collective thinking and really apply our own sense to the matter. Society will not disintegrate unlike the popular belief. Now I know some one will argue, then that should we let people do what ever they want like rob, rape and cheat others. NO! That is not what I am saying and if this thought has crossed your mind after reading the above, you should stop reading!
As long as it does not do harm to any other being, its not fatal to anyone, our decisions have to be our own, in matters that pertain only to self and has nothing to do with opion of others is where I am coming from. I am not asking to dessimate society completely.I am saying it is possible to maintain one's inviduality also in a social setting.Matters pertaining to the heart. Marraige, job, friendship, fashion, your own life. Do not be the sheep following the herd!
 We cannot view the world by the standards set by someone centuries ago. We must not judge at all. We have to take it as a part of evolution and learn to grow individually as well as appreciate the growth and changes around us. 

Change...the only constant

We change is all that I know....
We must....we have to...
there is no other way....
we cannot stop it....
as we grow older....
we learn new things...we experience different emotions...
they all change us...
like the ebb and flow of tide...
our lives flow on and on....
but we are different ever flow.

What was once the all important ...life changing event...
in long time to come...becomes ridiculously miniscule and insignificant.

The only constant life that truly remains before it ends....is change. 

Aspire to be great...or don't... its ok !

We all have aspirations. Over the years ...the people I have met...all have something or the other they believe is their goal in life or is their destiny or they aspire to be. Some want to be Spectacular, some mediocre, some women just want a family and some men just want to be free. I have met people who aspire to be great..even if it is just at their work or job while some just want o survive and be able to breath and live to be a 100! 

Don’t you see? Even the most unambitious of us have some ambition or aspiration! 

What i wonder is if we as individuals have a right to judge the other for their decisions or aspirations? The paths they choose to lead to the way they want to go is their choice and their decision. Something they thought was the best road that leads to where they want to go or lead away from where they do not. Can we decide what is right or wrong for someone? As a parent, friend or spouse? Can we completely comprehend the reasoning and the deduction of one individual who has the sum total of their beliefs, experiences , fears and choices. I think not! We all make our decisions, we are entitled to change as our lives progress but no one gets to tell us that this is the right way to be! We be as we need to be at that point of time and then we galvanize when the moment is right. Not a moment before or after! I can choose to be a Hero or Coward! No one can tell me what is moral and what is immoral or ethical or non ethical. There is and that is my opinion entirely...just our choice of what we choose. The standards were set decades  or millenniums ago as guidelines or suggestions of what can be...but in no means can they be the prime directive of the way of life! Each life like a finger print is unique, every person has their own choices by which they get to the point of the fork in the road where they find themselves. The only guide and moral compass must be how they feel? Will that decision be the one they can live with....I don’t say people do not compromise to their circumstances.... some forks in the road lead people to decide that too, and that by no means that they are cowards or not true to their nature or worse! Its their decision to be as they are ... for the while and the rest of their time if they choose as they feel  that is the best course of action...in this case inaction. Its a tough life, each day one makes choices and decisions that effect them. Fear may not be an option but it is very real to most. We are microcosmic in this Universe and if we look at the enormity of the Universe we realize it, but the reality is that most people do not. They are self centred and all they know is themselves, their lives and how and what effects them.... that is all that matter to them. If we look up to the stars we will see that we have 1 life that we know of and thats all we can do... is make this one the best we can! 

So note to self... aspire to be great but don’t kill yourself trying too hard , its ok if you don't want to be that either...its ok not to know what you want and it is definitely ok not to know where you are going from this point on!! 

Look .....I long for you....

I look at you longingly...my heart aching to hold you once again...

my arms jerk involuntarily every time I see you. 

All I feel like is to reach out and touch you...

Holding my breath for you to focus on me just once...

You are lost in your thoughts...busy looking 

at this world bustle around you ... as if trying to make 

sense of this newness of existence and yet you look 

like an old soul that knows. 

Your eyes are lit with the fore knowledge of the past present and the future. 

My love for you grows and grows till I think my heart will

spontaneously burst.

Your smile your gentle touch and your beauty astounds me till 

it makes me a believer that there is a God who has created beauty in 

every iota of this green blue Earth. 

I love you... I did when you were not there....I loved the thought of you...

I love you....today when I behold your form of perfection. 

I love you ... every day ..as long as I breath you will be a part of every breath

I take...you are constantly in my thoughts....when you are not with me...

I am thinking of things I want to tell you....talk to you...

when I see you ...I want to curl up with you and never let you go...

as the world does not hold any worth unless you are near... :)

My father...my inspiration...

It is ironic that exactly one year ago this day, my father suddenly died and left a huge void in my life. We never realize how vital and what a huge part of your life someone is until they are gone. But this is
not about my sadness or of my loss.
My father like most working people did a job...got paid and took the best care of us his family. He was a plastics engineer.
Then he decided one day to do his own thing.
So he opened a business, in Nigeria, he lost a lot of capital as he did not have the right plan or the work force and he had to shut down operations. Most people would quit but he didn't. He moved us to India where he invested with an old family friend ( one tip for to be entrepreneurs, either do not work with friends and family or have everything in written, in triplicates preferably). The old family friend set up operations and put most of the business in his own name. My father was the muscle and brains but the so-called friend was the face and name of the business. As we all can see where that would have gone, soon he duped my father and booted him out.
That was the end of another heart breaking episode, the thing about papa was, he never quit.
Lesson 1. Never Quit. Try Try and Try again.
As things progressed my father tried different things, one thing he did not do was sit home and wait for
the right job to come along.
It was then that he thought of starting his own dried snacks (Namkeen) business. It sounds great but he was 1 man. No one to help or support him. My brother and I were too young and in school. Only person to help him was Mom, who stood by him like a rock.
This is what he did, every once a week,he would get up at 3 am. I would drive him to the bus station in C.P, New Delhi at 5 am where he too the bus to Jaipur, Rajasthan, a 6 hour bus ride. He would buy the snacks in sacks (sounds like a nice rhyme) then he would catch the bus back and get back home around mid night and some times later. The next day we would all, my family and sometimes our school friends, create an assembly line. Papa would scoop and put the snacks in baggies and then one of us would weigh them, then the next would seal them and the last would put it in cartons and pack them.
In an ideal world it was a great home based business, unfortunately there was no social media marketing. My father would pack the samples and supplies in the car and take them from store to store trying to break the monopoly of the existing businesses and just get his foot in the door. Gradually he got tired and had to quit. No marketing, no human resource and barely any capital, he still took his shot.
Lesson 2. If you want to do something, go for it, sometimes take the leap of faith is what matters.
Lesson 3. You may not always be successful but at least you could tell yourself that you tried!
After this experience he got in touch with a God sent man who offered my father a consulting position with a government organization and my father never looked back. The hard days were gone and then there were happy days where he could once again breath easy and not worry about how will he send my brother to Engineering school or get me married.
He retired a happy man, but that was not the end of his endeavours. He was always interested in a good business venture and always encouraged people who wanted to do their own thing. Till the last day of his life, he was involved in various ventures and wanted to keep doing things. He didn't have to, he had a house, his wife had passed on, his kids were married and settled...but it was like he just could not sit still or idle for long.
Lesson4. Never let go of your appetite for life!
My father lived big, forgave all and loved all.
Today, him as my inspiration, I venture out on my own, starting my own catering business. I hope he looks down upon me with a smile or frown ( as he may think I am doing something wrong and he wants to advice me). I hope I make him proud and am able to be a success.
Thank you Papa....you will always be my inspiration. 

Take a day off...

I took the day off....

not from work...just from my mind....myself...

no thinking...no analyzing...no wondering...no adding to half baked dreams....

just breathing....and being....

It is tougher than most things...

to tell oneself its okay...its okay to take a break from yourself...

from the worrying and wondering and hoping and dreaming....pondering...

of wanting something to happen so bad that it gives you a bellyache!

What did I do?

I read a book,

gazed at the over cast skies,

held a cup of coffee and ...

watched the snow fall in all its hush....glide to the earth...and make a white quilt...

I watched an old movie and talked to an old friend.....

And then....took a deep breath....and told myself ... you are entitled....you are worth it....

you are worthy of your dreams, thoughts and aspirations!!