Yehi hai Bombay meri jaan!!!

“When you don't have anything, then you have everything”

A lone frequent flyer, I have always found books rescuing me hugely, especially saving me from exchanging plastic pleasantries with fellow passengers.

Few years back while touring to South Korea, I picked up Mother Teresa’s biography authored by Navin Chawla and found myself absorbed after reading and deplaning. The book engulfed me phenomenally making me access and read all the books I could on her life. In the meanwhile all these years, I had been telling my best friend Anindita about my desire to visit one of Mother’s Ashrams, as she had been visiting one of the Homes for mentally challenged and old age people for the past few years regularly.

For the last five years she had been asking me to accompany during her visits to the (Ashram) Home and somehow I could never join her. At times it was a pressing deadline or international assignment that stood in the middle of my wish to visit the Ashram. This year to save me from last moment excuses, she announced the date of her visit in advance. And I gave my word to be there.
Anindita and Shyam, her husband had brought lunch for the inmates and was awaiting my arrival. I reached late by fifteen minutes braving the snarling traffic and my own conflict of emotions that I am dealing at present; struggling hard to put my life back on track; of course in the first place I do not know if it ever was on the
track.

The moment I stepped an inmate (girl) hugged me affectionately as Anindita had already apprised them about my arrival. She knows all the inmates by names and faces and is well-bonded with them. I was choked with emotion with sudden gush of acceptance for who I was, not for what I could do. Being mentally challenged the way she communicated her love cannot be missed out. All the inmates greeted me with smiles and acceptance. My delayed arrival elsewhere would have invoked anger; but here all the inmates sitting at the dining hall with their empty plates and empty stomach were waiting for me – an unknown face with joy and there was no expression of complaint.

I was fighting back my tears hard until another inmate (girl) touched my palms; took my hand in hers and touched my cheeks. I could not control my tears anymore. The young sister at the Ashram was smiling at me. Apart from the volunteers, the way inmates take care of each other is amazing witness of so much flow of love and easy acceptance. The joy and gratitude they expressed in spite of all their sufferings with no complaints is commendable.

As my stream of my tears refused to stop, suddenly an aged inmate came near me leaving her food wiping my tears and smiled at me. What touched me was how could “so” called mentally challenged people be so sensitive and love unconditionally? And for few months I had been so hard on myself chasing domestic love. Probably now I comprehend Mother’s quote, “love to be real, it must cost - it must hurt - it must empty us of self.” I have resolved to come to the Ashram again and again to empty myself to learn to love. After all I need the inmates far more than they need me because they are the ones who taught me the essence of the quote – “when you don't have anything, then you have everything.”

For 'You' my healer

If I start the sentence with me, you will again come back with a rasp spanking in your voice alleging that I dwell in a world of I, me, and my world. So I begin it with you. Where would I be without you? I do not need a special day to commemorate of you being in my life. I celebrate every moment of having you. I need no special day or occasion to convey where you are placed in my life. With the long drawn afternoon stretching to an evening and my sleep acting treacherous, I thought of flaunting my writing skills! Weak in numbers, I could never understand the chapter of loss and gain of life too. But I have comprehended this stuff very well that whatever loss one incurs; invariably it leads to a wholesome gain. After all who matters, who never did, who won't anymore. So, I don't worry about people from my past, there's a reason why they didn't make it to my future. My strength is to have you beside me always. I do not even have to think twice before speaking, or doing anything. I can pour out the harshest contents (acidic) joyous (ephemeral) feelings, scariest thoughts, with an ease and comfort- that's my gain. Being a big time mood monster, it is not at all easy to deal with me, but someone manages all my mood swings, and tolerates me in spite of me being a very difficult person. I am not caught unawares of my obstinacy and rudeness. But my healer bears all my crap and gives me emotional shelter when I need the most. I am blessed to have a presence of such a healer in my life.

Nothing hurts anymore

Its such a lovely feeling to live in a hallucinated world.....

At the same time to have a knowledge of the real world.....

In my world I COMMAND my thoughts....

And when I come back to the real world....I do not find any cacophony anymore....

Probably because I have learned to co-exist in my two worlds of hallucination and reality.....

No more fears....No more doubts.....Nothing hurts anymore......

Migrating Bird

I never realized the meaning of being nest-less before I left my mother’s home in search of my pursuits. And now when I wander like a vagabond without any safety net beneath I do feel like a bird. The only difference is even birds come back to their nests at the end of the day. I have several transitory resting places; for I do not want any perpetual place of harbour. Am I aping a migrating bird???

Are you really there?

It rejuvenated me once again. The lines on his T-shirt read "Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries." I was rest assured. I did not belong to either of these genres. To me life offers different synonyms every morning. I am a very 'present-day-living' kind of person. There is too much of variety in my life.

Undoubtedly my husband too wonders if he married the same lady eighteen years ago! So here starts my story. I married at an early age of eighteen. I was hopelessly in love with my husband. I could not bear the pangs of loneliness. I just could not stay without him in India.The marriage was alike a mission accomplishment for me! He taught me the essence of human relationships.

During our stay in California I lazed around frequently and he pampered me like a queen. A surgeon by profession, my husband is equally good in culinary skills. His taste buds are sharper than mine. Needless to say his tastes are fine than mine. My husband is the world's greatest dad too to my two loving kids. The love, and patience he showers on them at times makes me envious. I have never seen him complaining about anything in life. He is always there for his parents, siblings, friends, patients for every one, who needs him.

I actually grew up with him. He inspired me to have my identity as a screenplay writer. He gives me all the space I need, and yet is always there for me. I admire his indefatigable energy. He may run in a hectic schedule, but always makes it a point to be at the airport to fetch me when I come back home from my tours. He never fails in making my first cup of morning black tea. He listens patiently to what all I have to say and loves me unconditionally with all my flaws and insecurities.

Still all his care, concern, and love petrify me in my sleep. I start tossing over my bed. I am restless.I just get up and think in spite of having such a wonderful husband I wish better never to have met him in my dreams than to wake and reach for hands that were never there for me.

I walk up to the refrigerator, gulp down some water and question myself is this my new fictional character? I ask this nonexistent husband "Are you really there"? And burst out with laughter. Rightly said, the really happy man never laughs - seldom - though he may smile. He does not need to laugh, for laughter, like weeping, is a relief of mental tension. Katherine Hepburn once quoted, "Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh."

Cyclonic blues

Again follows my blues, after the cyclone-phyan left its impact over the skies of the twin cities I live these days. The patter of the rains transforming into loud nostalgia pierces me. It cuts across time and space. And reminds everything has changed - but me. Yes, things did change at my end too, but stagnantly, like moss. I am frazzled with the question bouncing back to me every now and then - “till when will this stagnancy continue?”I am tuckered out completely with this survival routine.When will I live my life? Will I ever be able to live my dreams or die battling for survival? How and when do I break the shackles and pursue my creative interests?