Christmas and Sunlight

Cheer and joy, like life itself, come in small packets. Whether we choose to regard or disregard them is a momentous decision. Every time we choose happiness, we beat sorrow and vice-versa. Celebrations are important for they serve to teach us important lessons. Amidst the chaos of daily life, we find time to put together a season of love, be it by inviting over friends and relatives we have long lost touch with or forgiving our worst enemies. This is why happiness is magical- it heals oldest wounds with stupendous simplicity and makes the tallest of misers magnanimous, even if it is for a day.

I feel that sunlight has a similar role to play in our lives, and by large, that of all the creatures on Earth. Sun makes life possible. My perfect day is a day spent outside, with bountiful Sun playing on my face. For some it might be a cause of worry for the global warming is on a rise while others still may be allergic to Sun rays. The beauty experts would argue that the harmful UV rays of the Sun are the reason for all skin and hair problems. Yet, I stand firm in my belief and that stems from a childhood spent in the abode of strong afternoon Sun- my most playful time, the time of the day when I used to be most alive as a kid. As a writer, I find my most wise thoughts come to me while lounging around in the sunshine. And really, is there anything as good as the warm afternoon Sun on a cold winter's day?

So, while for most of us Christmas is a night festival, I strive to find the festive spirit during the day. There's something in the winter air which stirs up my creative spark. It gives my imagination wings and makes me feel more generous and loving. Isn't that what Christmas is all about?
Season's Greetings and loads of love! :)

May be I m just not good at handling rejection!

2013 has been a terrible waste of a year for me. It was the year when nothing worked out- work, career, and relationships all failed disastrously. It was the year when I fell flat on my face in everything that I tried. The only silver lining has been my employment with a non-profit organization as a PR person and a teaching volunteer. Now, this work I actually like. Every Sunday when I get to see the bright faces of my kids, brimming with enthusiasm and wonder on what priceless grain of knowledge they might gain today, I know that my life is not completely a waste.  

I had applied to a fellowship in Harvard University. My project proposal was excellent, my references were good and there was no reason why I shouldn't have been selected but 2013 turned that down for me as well. I was 100% positive that I would get through this. I thought life cannot be that unfair and after everything that I've been through this year, the end would definitely be fabulous just to make up for it all! I was wrong. I forgot a very simple fact: Life doesn't owe us anything. It is upon us to create happiness from nothing. 

So, what really makes me unhappy? Is it the fact that the man I was in a relationship with and later fell in love with doesn't want me? Or is the fact that along with all other organizations/institutions/opportunities that I applied to this year Harvard too rejected me? The answer is neither. I am unhappy because somehow, unconsciously, I have accepted these defeats as final. I have refused to see through the muddy waters and have accepted being a victim to circumstances. Probably the right thing to do would be to not register these setbacks at an emotional level and to think through the reasons why I was not accepted rationally. And yet somehow I find myself refusing to do so, choosing instead to shut myself from the world, not accepting any phone calls, texts or communication of any sort and keeping myself under self-imposed house arrest. May be I am just not good at handling rejection!

Pain and its many colors

In my dictionary pain is best defined as the acute feeling of mental, physical and/or emotional drainage that you feel when faced with loss. It could be a loss of any kind- a relationship, a loved one, or as it happens mostly in my case, the death of a dream. Dreams are by their very nature, flawed. We imagine, aspire and desire a lot in the empty canvas of our minds, unaware that there lie monsters in the form of circumstances who often hide in the darkness and attack us when we least expect it. This leads to pain, sadness and depression. Pain is the wound we often hide in smiles, tears, hugs, kisses, beneath closed eyes, a chattering tongue, a useless relationship, alcohol, sex, drugs, et al. Ultimately, the veil is lifted and we are made to face our innermost demons and that day our world comes crashing down.

We lash out at pain, we curse it, we detest it, and more often that not, we tend to avoid it at all costs. Thus pain becomes a mental block, a hideous skeleton in the closet of our minds, a perplexed dosage of insanity closed off by mental stature and limited by the beating of our hearts. Does pain really ever have an end? Not really! It changes its form and decides to sink beneath our consciousness but it never dies. It only fades away from our memory but its presence as an entity is eternal. It lives and feeds on our fears and produces guilt.  We have all seen the repercussions of being born out of guilt- it does not let you breathe. It chooses the most vulnerable and attacks them till the last ounce of happiness in them dies.

And when you are lonely and hurting, pain becomes your mate. It always leaves its mark. It always leaves you wanting for more. It is the strongest anti-dote to peace and complacency and the biggest motivator for poets, dreamers and writers to fall into the trap it once set- and there is its rebirth, from one ignited mind to another. Where there is a dream, there is pain. 

Something you may not have seen...

It must have slipped your mind
How I used to laugh, sit, stroke your hair or even
how I used to look!
Your memory might have erased
my saddening presence,
my belittling talks, and
my crazy ways.
However, in the conundrum of daily life
you might have missed something,
a vibe, a feel, a touch, a look...
you may not have seen something around you recently,
a face that remembers all that you were,
and all that you can be.

You might not have noticed my absence
but in the presence of your absence
I have noticed the dreams that were shattered
as you broke your promises, one by one.
I have seen the ugly faces of all those unfulfilled desires
which you left inside me.
And in my loneliness,
I have found friends in the Sun, the birds, fresh morning dew and
my solitary long way back home.