Birthdays; happy or otherwise,

The thing about happiness and sadness that makes it what it is the odd times it seems to greet us. It's my birthday today. My birthdays and I have always had a love-hate relationship (well, more hate than love really). They seem to be lacking a certain .. zing. You always expect something big. Not for yourself alone, no, something like an assassination or natural calamity. It's morbid but under the layers of disturbing content is the simple fact that everyone wants to leave an impact on the world. Everyone wants to bring about a change. No one wants to die unnoticed. Everyone wants to be remembered.

So when that clock struck 11.30, with a heavy heart I braced myself for a feeling of not having achieved enough, leaving a print on the globe (except for a sizable carbon one).

Then the first call came. Expected. The caller? Not so much. The fact that he remembered and called me and talked for all that time was heartening. Then the next, and another. Twelve calls and two texts later, I write this blog.

My mind keeps reverting back to the close friend that hasn't called. Disappointment, settles in for the night.

But as I toy with my phone, I see my call history and realise something. Maybe it isn't about who forgot, who couldn't give a fuck and just maybe, it is about the fourteen people who stayed up till midnight for me.

Maybe it's time I let go of my dissatisfactions.

Maybe it's time I let go of my regrets.

Maybe it's time I stop letting the past hurt my present and taint my future.

Maybe it's time I forgive & forget.

Maybe it's time I let go of those who hurt me and embrace those who always pick up the pieces afterwards.

Will I be able to, only time will tell.

For now, I shall take the advice of a dear friend and try to have a "happy" birthday.

In This Place/Yellow

Happiness isn't something that you can attain and trap. It comes, sometimes. It stays with us for a while. Gives us memories. Makes the edges of our mouth turn. And then leaves us for another day, another moment. And life, is just a pursuit of happiness.

I have a rule: whenever something overwhelms me, I close my mind and take a step back. Look at it from the point of view of the world; as a fraction of a fraction of a tiny spec on the universe.

More often than not, it seems minuscule, downright trivial and senseless.

On the extremely rare occasion that it seems to matter, I know it's worth holding onto. It's fulfillment, satisfaction or, simply put: happiness.

Today, I returned to the hotel and reflected on my day while I turned in for the night. And for the first time after a long time, I genuinely could not stop grinning from ear to ear. I felt that warmth emanating from the inside though it was freezing outside. For the first time in a long time, the girl looking at me in the mirror just smiled at me. There was no worry, fear, tiredness running through her mind. Infact, her mind had stopped running for the first time since she entered the world. With it her heart also slowed down and she could feel the air ease into her and reach the pit of her stomach. Maybe that's what they meant by 'butterflies in the stomach', she wondered.

As I lay there, the still darkness around me my only companion, I thought. It wasn't about schedules and the future, my studies and meaningless words passed from one person to another. It was the regret. It was loathing. It was disgust in myself. I had forgotten what was my most precious piece of knowledge, my light in the great unknown. I had forgotten what it was to be happy.

People mistake success for happiness. They think it's interchangeable. So, we have replaced the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of success.

Success is different things to different people but can generally be categorized with advancement in the professional field, social status, highest standards of lifestyles, fast cars, and of course, money coming out of ones ears.

But successful people aren't really happy. Well, they think they are but it's false happiness, I can assure you. Even just the fear of losing it all and that constant need for "more" is more than enough to drive the pleasure out of obscene luxury and wealth.

Maybe it's just that with God's grace, my father's been able to provide me with a comfortable existence, but I have never used to feel that need to be "better, faster" to be happy. I didn't want big flashy cars, palatial mansions and a designer wardrobe. Then somewhere along the way, in an effort to better myself in all other aspects of life, I forgot what was most important to me. I became materialistic and the amount I had became directly proportional to my emotions, and not to mention, what I thought of myself.

In trying to make something of myself, I had forgotten completely who I was.

My happiness lay in good friends, good food and good music. Beyond that, it didn't really matter at all.

I know it sounds cliche but cliches become cliches for a reason: if they are so common, well, there must be some truth to it!

And the damned world, with it's promises of fulfillment in your next BMW and the satisfaction of slipping into the "New Jean Paul Gaultier Fall-Summer '10 Collection", will make holding onto this knowledge painfully difficult. But hey, I guess you can't really blame them: marketing is an essential ingredient to the many people working there being "successful" (God, how I have grown to hate that word!) and thus, "happy".

As I write this, I feel my spirits dampened because I know as soon as I wake up, I shall forget my little late night revelation and find solace in the closest shop. It's always been a battle to hold onto myself and my thoughts and not let them fade away into the materialistic jungle out there. But as my past has told me, that moment of innocent, pure happiness is, most definitely, well worth the fight.

I shall now let the thoughts and thrills of today seep into my mind and wish you all a good night!

Love Gives Me Hope

L O V E - 4 letters that are the epicenter of our lives from the moment we enter this world to our very last breath here. We try to understand it, control it. And when we fail on doing so, we write songs and poems, movies and plays and novels about it.

You think you know what love is, right? But let me ask you, when did you love with the most passion? When did you feel crazy in love? Well, High School of course!

Call me biased (maybe because I am only in High School after all), but I believe whole heartedly, that High School love is the best. The thrill of seeing him for the first time; behaving like a love struck puppy, floating on cloud 9; using every possible resource trying to get him know better (networking through friends and cyber stalking is a personal favorite); forming connections with him by making friends with his friends; then finally, one fateful day, he looks at you and smiles. You will either:

a) smile back with immense grace and mystique, enough to let him know you're interested but not enough to look like you are obsessed (which you are by this point)

b) keep staring in complete disbelief and murmuring under your breath long enough to make him believe you are in fact quite .. well .. "special" (the kind that believes that aliens are conspiring against them with Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy).

c) Pass out. Yes, that's it. Out cold.

Now, we all rehearse this in our heads a hundred times over but the sad truth is only 1 out of every 1000 will be able to execute (a). And the rest of us mere mortals, have to settle for (b) or (c).

Then you start talking to him (one word at a time, between giggles, longing looks and sighs. Each night you prepare what you're going to say to him (more thoroughly than you would ever study for your exams, of course!). You play out every possibility, every gesture and every last movement till you know it better than your name. And when you meet him in school the next day, all that confidence melts and you count the colours in his eyes while he speaks to you. It may not to be according to plan, but it is still "perfect" (yes, that's a word you will use in every conversation regarding him. Repeatedly) . You listen to love songs, watch romantic movies and read passionate novels until you memorize every last lyric, dialogue and quote. (The entertainment business has made three-quarters of it's revenue through this. We are exploited and might I say, we love every minute of it.)

Then come the endless stream of magazine articles and advice from friends on how to make him ask you out. (Girls never ask out guys. That's like the sun rising from the west.). A person in this stage is easily identifiable as they will be more careful about their appearance and look which has been painstakingly put together. More plotting and planning ensues; nervous midnight calls to friends, endless frustrations. But it is all worth it when he finally pops the question: "Will you go out with me?".

For a second the world stops still, it's just you and him. You take a mental image and promise yourself you'll never forget this moment. And believe me, you won't.

Then the inevitable: you both send out texts to everyone you know. The world must know of this most "perfect" union.

Then the part which I personally find the most boring: the relationship. Okay, I know that sounds cheap but you're all just in denial. There are (again) a few ways this could go:

a) You truly are soul mates, each other's better halves. The love may sometimes lessen but it never dies. (Lucky asses, you.)

b) You enjoy it for a while then you get bored. (This is more common than you'd think.)

c) You're madly in love and then he goes and cheats on you and breaks your heart (okay, fine, girls also cheat.)

Then comes the painful break up. Tears are shed, names are called, promises that once you had guarded with your life are broken. Either you say you'll remain friends which more often than not doesn't work out, or nothing but hatred remains in your heart, leaving no place for forgiveness and understanding.

This is the period of emptying tissue boxes, wondering what went wrong, woeful ballads and the time for friends. Because guys will come and guys will go, but you're friends will always be there to hold you up when you don't have the will to go on, to support you when everything seems to falling apart and most of all, ensure that guy knows what a "massive, humongous ass hole he is for screwing up the best thing that ever happened to him". And then making his life a living hell. Always love your friends the most, coz they love you even after seeing you at your absolute worst.

And then one fine day, another amazingly brilliant guy looks at you and the whole process starts all over again.

That's the best part about High School love: you could fall madly in love and then feel your world spiraling down when it's over but with a little help from your friends, you can start all over with as much of enthusiasm, love and passion.

To all those who have experienced it, I hope it was a happy trip down memory lane.

To all those who are yet to experience it, I hope you enter this most memorable and amazing phase of your life with optimism and faith.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I loved writing it.

Love without fear and with your whole heart.

I'm Yours

I was afraid. To hear this song again, to feel the things I had felt listening to it. If my iPod had a 'Least Played' list, this would be right at the top.

Wait. That's not right. I spent a month listening to it, dissecting it, trying to make sense of it. There is a science behind all of it. There has to be, doesn't it?

More than being afraid of the song itself, it was the irrational and unexplainable surge of emotion that seemed to bludgeon all your senses until you were ready to let the tears slip the constraints of your eyes. It wasn't sorrow and it wasn't happiness, it was just blank emotion (that in itself can not be true as it goes against the very definition of emotion). I wrote it down in my diary so that I could make sense of it in the light of day (my theory of day and night but that's another post altogether). In the morning, I forgot about it and it lay at the bottom of my side table drawer under piles of medicines, mementos, rocks (from camp) and various other otherwise random objects which were, and remain to this day, my most priceless possessions. It lay there to be untouched and unnoticed for weeks to pass.

As luck would have it, while rifling through my drawer in my signature scattered way, I chanced across this neglected little notebook, adorned with a beautiful yet strange white and black pattern. As I opened it, 2 years of thoughts and emotions hit me with a force that even the great Isaac Newton would have shied away from defining. I read the last post, the one of the song. I read it a second time. Then a third. Then I switched on my iPod, breathed in deeply and pressed play on that very song. It all came back to me. The whirlwind of emotions.

I scrawled a single word. The only word remaining in my otherwise numb and empty head (no wise cracks please!). "Madness".