Hit upon this one...

Anonymous, GR


Are you able to listen to your own feelings ?

So why being scared of others' sweetness ?

मन करता है...

लौटने का वहां जहाँ थी मासूमियत,
और था अनजाना, अन्छूआ, बचकाना भरोसा,

जो दूर हो गए उनके हाथ थामने का,
छूटे रिश्तों को फिर गले लगाने का,
जो अपने हो न सके उन्हें अपना बनाने का,

फूलों को देख मुस्कुराने का,
शीशे पे जमी ओस पे दिल खींचने का!

मन को समझाने का कि ये सब मुमकिन है,
मन करता है...

Man and Boy

by Tony Parsons


What could I tell her? You don’t tell a wife that some inanimate object somehow represents all those things you know you are never going to have. The places you are never going to see, the women you are never going to love, the things you are never going to do. You cant tell a wife all that stuff. Not even a wife you love very much. Especially not a wife like that.

- -

The reason most men stray is opportunity, and the joy of meaningless sex should never be underestimated. It had been a meaningless, opportunistic coupling. That’s what I had liked most about it.
What I liked least about it was that already I was starting to feel like a traitor.
But all the time I was with Siobhan, while half of me thought that this was probably the woman I hadn’t realized I had been looking for all my life, the other half of me sort of missed my wife. I missed the easy familiarity you get with someone who you have been with for years. If I was going to be unfaithful, then I kind of wished it could have been with Gina, my wife.

- -

Love is what’s left when being in love is gone. It’s when you care about someone and you hope they are happy, but you are not under any illusions about them. May be that kind of love is not exciting and passionate and all those things that fade with time. All those things that you are so keen on. But in the end it’s the only kind of love that really matters.
- -

‘You think you want someone who can transform your life with love. But you really don’t want love, Harry. You couldn’t handle real love. You want romance.’
Her words were made worse, much worse, by the fact that they were said with enormous tenderness. There was no anger or malice in them. It was as if she felt genuinely sorry for me.
‘And that’s fine. That’s the way you are and in a lot of ways it’s a good way to be. But it would never work between us because you can’t make the hearts and flowers stuff last for a lifetime. Not with kids around. Especially when they are not your own.’
- -


‘But you have to learn to let go. Its part of of what it means to love someone. To really lose someone. If you love someone then you don’t just see them as an extension of yourself. You don’t just love them for what’s in it for you. Love means knowing when to let go.

This is something I had heard my own mother say, and I am amazed by this insight she had when I was little, being so far removed from anything that was remotely modern.

- -

He dropped his bike and came to my arms, pressing his face against me, overwhelming me with what felt like the very essence of him. He filled my senses – his unruly mop of blond hair, his impossible smooth skin, that Pat small of dirt and sugar. My beautiful son, I thought, tasting the salt of our tears.

- -


A feeling that I have always longed for, but may never get to experience.

Man and Boy – a delightful book. Highly recommended.

कर्म

आदमी जो कहता है, आदमी जो करता है,
ज़िन्दगी भर वो सदायें पीछा करती हैं!

Schnee

Tiny flakes lit by street lamps,
Powder under the feet, on the coat, on the head
Cottony wisps coming at you but stopped short by the wind-screen
Coolness melting in the palms, on the cheeks,
Outdoor tables loaded with perfect pristine circular cakes,
White vastness everywhere.

“The Buddha, Geoff and Me”, and me

This book by Edward Canfor-Dumas is something that I would have never borrowed much less bought had I seen it at a bookshop. I would have dismissed it as pop-psychology/encourage-yourself-in-10-steps kind of a book – something that I never read. So when Vatssla, a friend from school, recommended it after hearing of my marriage fiascos, I noted down the name and comfortably went to my World War 2 Stories.

But she persisted, and I am glad she did!

After she insisted that she wants me to read it cause she considers me a friend, I had to give in. I ordered it on Amazon and the book arrived in a few days.

When I started reading it, the initial impression was indeed of it being a pop-psych-10-step course with a veneer of a storyline. But as I usually persist with all the books that I pick up (only exceptions being Mein Kamf and The Jamaica Inn), I kept on with this one.

I am glad I did.

The protagonists in the book – Geoff and the Narrator talk about life and how Buddhism can redeem what we call life.

This is the first time I really read about the religion apart from the stories that I had read in school textbooks. The fantastic thing about the book is that it conveys that you can apply the learnings of the religion without actually following it.

Several of these things resonated with me at different levels. At certain points I identified what I had absorbed as just being a Hindu and being observant of my religion. At others, I recalled lessons that I had learnt in my Moral Science classes at the Convent School I went to. Still others were values that I got from my mother. And the ones about being grown-up and independent from my counseling sessions were there too.

So, though I felt like “I know it all” at times, it was quite enlightening to read about all those values that have been know to us all from the various sources of our growth, and which still get lost in the banalities of life.

Am I going to use these principles to make anything of my marriage? May be, may be not. That would all depend on my life state at the time of reckoning. But I would definitely try and change my life-state at that point in time. Live less of “Animality” and “Anger” and go to more of “Learning” and “Buddha hood”. It’s not going to be easy but I will try. It may not help the marriage, but it will help me and, hopefully, Neha too.

And I am going to recommend this book to some of my friends as well. That would be the “Bodhisattva” state! Hooray!!!

Thanks Vatssla. Thanks Mr. Dumas.

Read a chapter here

Trinity

by Leon Uris

“All we have ever shared,” she said, “is a room, a bed and a little time. We have never shared the sunlight or the wind or the feel of rain. When we were together it was always so temporary we never had the time to be ourselves. Love can’t mature in one room.” “What happened”, he asked. “One night, I found myself laughing. I laughed and laughed until I had tears and pains in my side…..I talked to Blanche and told her about all the peculiar sensations I was going through and I asked her what was wrong with me. She said, ‘My God, Shelley, you’re just happy, that’s all”.
David Kimberley realized he had never made her happy. He had given her pleasure from time to time, but what they had shared really was flight from mutual disenchantment.



“…I’ve lived in limbo, Conor. Limbo is no place for a man to exist. Its living death, worse than death, praying for death.”



Atty neither budged nor acknowledged his presence. He played his fingertips down her back and over the curve of her hip. No response. He rolled away, onto his back. He knew she was awake, stuffing it in, would never show a tear. “You are mad at me and you’ve every right to be,” he said. “A little, not too much,” she answered.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me. For three weeks, I’ve been looking forward day and night to seeing you…and then I go make a balls out of it”.
“It’s natural enough,” Atty said. “You’re all pent up with no one to let it out on. You’ve got to cut it lose on me, I suppose. I understand.”
“I don’t know how much of this guff you have to take,” he said. “Just because you get drunk once in a while, I’m not letting you go man. Besides, I’ve poor little pride where you’re concerned.”