Ages in Marriage

Evening walks, though I go for one very rarely, are a delight. In the busy parks, you get to see children playing and shouting there sweats out, old aged people having a slow walk with serious discussions, and youngsters jogging hard to keep themselves fit. I prefer walking slowly, observing the strangers in the pleasant weather. On one such evening I encountered a couple.

He brought an ice-cream for her as she sat on the bench in the park. She took it with a big toothless smile. The smile reached her spectacled eyes.. :) He looked at her lovingly as if saying to her "Did you see happiness in my eyes??, It is nothing but reflection of your happiness, my dear!" I boomed with an unknown happiness as I framed out this sentence from their expressions. "O-How-sweet-of-them" feeling inside me reminded me of the video below...

Remember when I was young and so were you
and time stood still and love was all we knew
You were the first, so was I
We made love and then you cried
Remember when

Remember when we vowed the vows
and walked the walk
Gave our hearts, made the start, it was hard
We lived and learned, life threw curves
There was joy, there was hurt
Remember when

Remember when old ones died and new were born
And life was changed, disassembled, rearranged
We came together, fell apart
And broke each other's hearts
Remember when

Remember when the sound of little feet
was the music
We danced to week to week
Brought back the love, we found trust
Vowed we'd never give it up
Remember when

Remember when thirty seemed so old
Now lookn' back it's just a steppin' stone
To where we are,
Where we've been
Said we'd do it all again
Remember when
Remember when we said when we turned gray
When the children grow up and move away
We won't be sad, we'll be glad
For all the life we've had
And we'll remember when....

It could have been a love marriage or...an arranged marriage.. That is not important today. What remains important is, at one point of time in their lives, they were strangers.. And, today they are most important for each other... 

I was still looking at them, "ice-creams in their hands, enjoying before it melts, looking at the reflection of happiness in each other's eyes"...They are loving, they are living.... 

While coming out of the park, a few Q&A within me...
Was their journey comfortable or tiresome and frustrating?? - Well, it can be both. It could have been both... The more important question is, is the journey taking them to the destination?
"What does love mean?" Love doesn't mean anything. Love is. It is the state of existence. 
"Is love sweet or sour?"  Love is neither sweet, nor sour. When you expect it to be sweet, it turns sour and when you are willing to accept the sour love, it becomes sweet. But it is neither. 
They say with ages in marriage, love grows... because as they grow old, the desires fall off, the expectations too... they just need each other for each other... 


A life lived with love for and with your close ones is a Love story in itself...

The Tale of Bird and its Nest

There is an old tree, on the highest branch of which lays a nest. That nest was built with a lot of hard work and dedication by a bird couple, so that their two eggs can grow up comfortably. Mother bird with a heart full of love hatched its two new eggs. The Father bird guarded the nest. When the two nestlings came out, father bird used to go far in search of food and the parents fed the baby birds with their beaks. Parent birds were the only vision, only hope, only guidance for the babies.The ways of world were beyond the sight of the baby birds. 

Soon the babies had their feathers growing. They turned into fledglings now. Even though they could not fly, they hopped here and there near the nest. The mother bird watched them from behind, taking care that they are not hurt. She made loud noises, to warn the babies of the danger. Parent birds taught the baby birds how to find food and what to eat. They taught how to fly.

The baby birds are young now. They now know how to eat, and how to fly.  They were eager to move to new world, try their flight and be free now.  Parents hesitated to let them free, but knowing that they need freedom and exposure to a new world, they let the birds leave them. The first little baby bird was extremely eager to fly, It had the thoughts of the new world and was beaming with joy... It jumped from the nest and flew into the air. It was not worried about the consequence of flying so fast. It just flew by, happy and content with its freedom. The next little bird was so shy and timid. It slowly stepped out of the nest, flew to the next branch and looked at parents. They smiled and encouraged with claps of flaps. It flew away after sometime as parents showed a way to its new nest.                       

The parents looked at both of them as they flew by. They are proud of the choices that are made by their babies. But, the nest is empty now. They miss the noise in and around the nest. Only question in their minds is "Will the nest be visited often with the same love and care???"

Open Communication Vs Keeping Secrets

Why do we keep secrets?  I'm not talking about the Government Secrets, corporate secrets or technology secrets. I am talking of those which we keep as individual people. Do we keep them to protect ourselves? Or others we love? Are we afraid of being judged? Do we keep secrets out of fear? Are we afraid that by revealing our secrets that we will be rejected? Or is it just for prestige? Or do we fear that the other person will benefit more out of our hidden task...? or do we fear that people will be jealous of us??
I remember how as school kids, some of my friends used to hide things... important questions for exams, how much portion one has completed, etc.., etc..... I was never able to hide such things. I confess that I too tried to hide just because others are hiding, but, part of me, likes boasting about myself and hence always failed in hiding things :). I loved to tell how much I have read and told my friends how much ever I knew, whatever my wisdom said about important questions.. At the end of the examinations, I would come to know that what I knew was the least.... and, all others who were showing off that they know nothing are getting better marks and know more than what I do. 

Coming back to secrets, as in personal ones... We all have secrets. We all keep them for different reasons. But, the motive behind secrecy should be strong. You shall not tell all the personal things to every one, and, If you tell someone, you should not expect the secret to be kept. And, most importantly, when you tell a secret to someone saying that "It's Only You whom I told" - that should be a truth. I have personally faced it many times. I try to hide a secret which is told to me and I come to know that Its not just me who knows this 'so called' secret.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. - Kahlil Gibran
To keep up a secret, you may have two options to here: 1) Use of a Lie , or 2)Declining to answer when asked something related.
There are instances when I too have lied to keep up a secret.... and then felt guilt for the same, when at the end I understood that it was of no use. And, that guilt is never a pleasant experience, and I kept wondering "Why I lied???" 
Though, the second option is much better, but somewhere the internal peace seems to be lost.
I understood that you are a free bird when you are transparent and have open communication.. because you are not afraid of what anyone might think, because now it was all out there. “Let them judge me as they will”.


“Do nothing secretly; for time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.”

My Magical Mom

She waited for us to come back from school at around 2.30 PM every day. She was ready with a plate full of rice mixed with some curry, as we got fresh up. My mom would then feed us morsel by morsel in each of widely opened mouths with a loving heart- with just a story along with food. This is one of the earliest memories of my childhood. And I wonder that it is same till date. There is some magic in my mother’s fingers that makes the food tastier.Whenever I have sleepless nights, I sleep near her silently. She raps on my head gently with her hand. There is some magic in my mom’s hands, which absorb all my worries and just within a few seconds, I fall asleep.

My mother has a virtual x-ray machine fit in her eyes, which reads exactly what’s going on in my mind. There is some magic in my mom’s eyes. This is one of the reasons that I have never been able to tell a lie to my mom. Whenever tried, I failed miserably. She would see sternly with a raised eye-brow, and then with a big smile says “JHOOT!”. “God! Pakdi gayi”, I think and then GRIN... She gets angry very soon but melts soon too. So, I decided not to do this again in my life... Being truthful is easier than to face the shame after this GRIN!!

Remember the ‘Jadu ki Jhappi’ of ‘Munna Bhai MBBS’? My mom’s Jhappi has the same Jadu... The warmth of her hug wraps me with all the nice things and care for me.There is some magic in my mom’s hug.

My Magical Mom’s love is something that I could never explain fully; it is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain. It believes beyond believing when the world around condemns. 

Mother's love is far beyond defining, yet it defies all explanation and it still remains a secret like the mysteries of creation. Many people no matter how hard they try cannot understand the great evidence of God's tender guiding hand in Mother's Love.

Main aur meri Tanhayi

Mind was too distracted and restless; I was unable to concentrate on anything. Wasn't able to read or write or even to think something. Wanted to talk to someone. So many friends in chat list but was not interested to talk also... Ever experienced this - the book is open, you are reading something and so many thoughts are popping up that you are unable to understand the simplest of sentences. And, if you think, what thoughts are coming, you have no answer. Meditation helped in this situation. And, it helps you to analyse things better, in a calm way. After that by reading my spiritual Master's book, felt even more better...

When you fight with your best friend, for no big reason, your mood becomes upset. The blame game starts. “You started it first”, “NO, it’s YOU”. And when finally in the process of accusations, you come to know that unknowingly you have hurt your friend, that your friend’s happiness becomes sadness because of you, it becomes very painful for the heart. You have nothing to say but “sorry”. But, again “Why should I say sorry?” says ego.

The question is why do we fight in relationships? Why sometimes arguments seem to have no better end than silence...

Mr and Mrs Iyer

One of the movies I love to watch again and again is Mr & Mrs Iyer. I watched it again with my roomies yesterday. It is very nicely written and directed

.

This lovely little movie called Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, involves a bus journey from the hills to the plains and a continuing train journey up to Calcutta, where a little young Tamil mother, Mrs. Iyer, with her son Santaanam is taken care of by a Muslim. Their bus is halted on the way because some Hindu has been killed in an accident, and the Hindus are up against the Muslims. They drag out everybody who is suspected of being a Muslim from the bus. A very old, gentle Muslim couple are slaughtered. But Mrs. Iyer saves this Muslim who is with her by saying, "He is my husband." At the start of the movie, she won't even touch the water that he gives, and in Tamil curses freely. But later on she asks for the bottle which he has put to his lips and drunk from and drinks it. Then, one particular moment, very tenderly photographed, they are almost about to kiss when somebody says, "Excuse me," and passes on. That moment of romance was broken. But it shows, what a little love, what a little care can do, because within this scope of a bus journey lasting perhaps ten hours, expanded into three days by much violence on the way, a young married girl with a baby could fall in love with a Muslim bachelor just because he took care of her, looked after the baby, put it to sleep; when she spilled milk, he brushed it off the floor, things like that.

Love is something we all speak about all the time, or most of the time, but about which we know nothing. Generally, Love among human beings is friendship, dependence, need and, at the most, affection. And affection is what we have between all of us—I mean whether it is brother and brother, sister and sister, husband and wife. And to call it love, and to expect what you cannot expect from affection is the most, shall we say, shattering experience in life, because we expect so much without knowing what to expect. And thereby resulting in break-ups. We have only affection; we have only need-based relationships. Everybody knows this; it is nothing new. And when we read about love, especially through poetry, and see it in the movies, we think we are missing something. You can ask any couple in the world whether they are happy. Very often, nobody will be able to answer, "Yes, we are." Unless they are very old, and have lived together fifty years, and all their desires, their needs have fallen off, and then "nothing but he and I remain".