My SOP: My Sob Story

Were people who thought of a masters after a bachelors degree insane? Or was each applicant just a marketing & sales person?

The requisite of a Statement Of Purpose made me think they were.I chose to believe that every application went with a two page story that the applicant wanted the board to believe. The day I picked up my checklist to see how far I was with my application process, was when it struck me hard. It was missing an SOP.

What the fish was an SOP? An essay that elaborated an objective merged with an essay about life. I realised then that I was not a Marketing & Sales person after all. Though by profession I was, I chose not to sell myself. When my company launched products, it was easy to sell because I was never affected directly by comments that people passed on it. But when I tried to sell myself into a two page word document, I felt lost for words.

I knew I was good at what I did and I knew that nobody who knew me as a person would have second thoughts about giving me an admit card, but the problem was to let them know in 2d paper! I could not boast and I could not lie. Why couldn't I just say that "I don't know what I don't know and I would love to know stuff"? NO! They would never accept it....for only those who have been enlightened are worthy of more education and those who have not the spark can rot in the well! :)

I struggled all night to put a piece together. A humble copy that underwent many many iterations...by friends, family and colleagues. After insults, suggestion, criticism and plain snubs,what came out was not me! I knew it and I am sure the board would know too. If the board knew that not even one SOP was worth being called a "Definition Of the Person", why do they insist?

When I become somebody with some power I will make sure the education system is fair. Students will not be judged based on SOP's...they will be judged by what they are and what they want to know. But that is later....I still have to submit mine! A mixture of my sob story and my inspirations. Hate it!

Death: Two Much

It is the third death anniversary of a lady I love still. A woman whose house I literally grew up in. My neighbour. Chella Rajendran. When I was 3years old I used to go to her house to get curd and drink it all up by the time I reached the last step leading to my house. Her daughter, Rajila(12years older than I was) was my only friend till I met Fazeela in 11th standard. I was Chella Auntys second daughter over the 15 years I knew her.

I shifted my house and things changed. We met so rarely and I had moved on to a new life. The two years in my new house were so eventful that I overlooked the fact that she had cancer. The next time I saw her was on Dec 16th, 2007. In an ice box. My heart bled so much that I kept wailing. Even more than her own daughter. My heart still bleeds thinking that I wasted 2 years of my life caught in my own web. But no point crying over spilled milk.

Today I heard about another death. A death that affected me in two ways. One because of my (girl)friend, who was crying uncontrollably for her lost moral support. Two because of my (boy)friend who was dying to come back to India from the UK for his lost role model. I was lost! I wanted to be in two places NOW.

Both of them were filled with so much negativity that scared me from the inside. Thoughts like "What if I die?", "What if something happens to my parents?" and "Is all this fame , money worth it?". I was going mad. How was I to explain to someone that only the body dies...there is still the soul that stays on and LIVES. Something that is felt. I can still feel the presence of all the people who have left my life...irrespective of if they are alive.

Basically, I hate December 16th.

B R E A K S

Everybody around me tells me how important breaks are. I know breaks between movies and I know breaks between lectures, but breaks in relationships are the most ridiculous things ever! I accept that when something gets too boring, breaks are necessary. But why bring time spaces between something that is completely at its best?

This beats me!

Reasons for a break:
1. The relationship is too boring and seems never ending. Breaks are a good way to break up I guess! :P
2. The relationship is at such a high that thinking space is necessary to go further. Good way to stick ones head on to their shoulders!

Whatever the reason maybe to take a break, the biggest challenge begins when the rule of "No communication" is put on it. No texts, no mails, no calls....NO NOTHING!!! This is why I personally hate breaks.

You get used to something and BANG! everything changes. You pick up the phone each time it beeps hoping its the other person or just keep staring into infinite spaces in front of you hoping that suddenly you wake up and find out you just dozed off and it was a dream. But nope! it is hard biting reality alright.

When the break is too short, the time spent on getting used to the sudden absence of the person by itself consumes most of the "Think/Reflect on the relationship" time. Worst thing that can happen is when the break is a LITTLE too long and you get used to not being with the other person. OOSOOM theory!

Moral of the story: Check the length of the break to find out what the outcome is! :P If the person is interested in you, the break is short...else I'd suggest that you get a bucket of ice cream and start sulking over a lost relationship!

Phantoms Of The Night:

One bright day was filled with all the love in the world...
The warmth of hugs and the sensation of kisses...
Everything had to end before it got too late...
The phantoms would rise from the dead of the night...
Our paths were entwined and thats how we met...
Same place, same time and same situations has befallen us...
But we had to part else it would be a mess...
A mess we could not sort even if we stood up and fought...
Fate played lady luck and our paths converged...
Same place, same time and same situations again...
But this time it was be dark and the night had fallen...
Happiness lay in each other but the night called us in..
Into the bottomless pit where it had nothing but grim...
Love had its way but this was not it...
Everything was perfect but yet nothing was right...
None of us had the strength enough to fight...
Slowly we gave up and let the phantoms gobble us up...
Little did we know that the phantoms had our bodies but could not get to our souls...
The souls had made it back to the happy days...
Maybe it flew towards another parallel world's way...
Where love could reunite and nothing else was said...
Where kisses were a million and the vows were made...
The souls remain married but the bodies still bled..
The phantoms had them somewhere from where no one fled...
The bodies would die and be born again...
This time into a world where they had nothing else but to gain....
From each others love in their little cove....
Fate had kept her promise and so did they...
A love never forgotten will surely reunite...
This is my story of phantoms and love....
Be it night or day...
Be strong anyway!!!

Connection: This life or the last?

Ever wondered why sometimes we meet people who seem so familiar that you instantly gel? I believe in karma and past lives. And what happened to me this weekend only made all my beliefs stronger. This weekend was a whole three day wedding affair. My best friend was getting married and I did not foresee how somethings were going to change my life as well.

For the first time I felt completely at home. None of the people at the brides house seemed strangers to me. It was like a dream and everyone there seemed to be a vivid part of my subconscious brain. Thanks to this, I felt reality was more hazy than usual. All this was nothing. The presence of one particular person there made complete sense to me. Though we hadn't ever met, I felt like we knew each other for ages...or maybe lifetimes!

Was this possible? I didn't need much of an introduction to actually start feeling comfortable with him. Any body can misinterpret what I am saying right now...but it was just perfect! Too perfect to be true. For heavens sake I didn't even know his second name. We looked out for each other, we spoke petty things, we insulted each other as though it was our birth right but we didn't realise that we were reliving something that might have been something in the past. A friendship or a relationship I don't know what!

I choose to turn off my logical brain and enjoy this beautiful feeling. There was not a single doubt nor an iota of insecurity in my body for me to not let my defenses down. I looked at him with eyes of familiarity and I was sure he understood something too. Nobody could possibly release themselves from these chains of security and perfect understanding. The reason why I am trying to make it sound so negative is because it was so powerful and overwhelming that anyone would succumb to it! I felt so special around him that I forgot I belonged to another family to whom I must return! (On reading this for the second time...it sounds weird but I think only he will understand)

We had our own life and our own commitments but this was so different. A connection made for no reason. A bond beyond rationalising. We didn't speak much after the last meeting but I am not built to contain emotions inside myself and have to express it to live in peace. I picked up my phone and messaged his mom(Whom I love more:P ). Destiny or coincidence I will let you decide but he replied! I was jumping around like a crazy woman and then it started....

We realised over the next many hours of non stop texting that all the speculations I made about us, he made them too! Nothing is better than missing someone so bad (Why should I miss someone I just met? Now you understand why I threw logic out before I started writing this blog) and realising that they missed you too! We texted all night as though there was no tomorrow and with both our guards down completely. From an acquaintance I hardly knew about, he got promoted to one of the most important people in my life!

They say the first few days of a knew relationship is when people talk the most...but ours was different. We knew this was not our first meeting! At least it didn't seem to me like it was! This life or the last one I don't know but I knew him really well. I am sure we will just not ever get fed up of each other. I managed to forge a new relationship that made my life complete! Why will I let life go back to being incomplete!?

Stereotypes: Imaginary Or Real?

There was a session at my workplace on stereotypes and similarities. What the hell I thought! Is it real that we meet people in life who are similar to other people from our past? I didn't want to believe that nobody was unique. He spoke about how there are a maximum of 150 stereotypes that an average man has seen in his life. That was spoken on Friday and obvious fact is that the thinker in me had a whole weekend to think about how many stereotypes I had met in my life. Alas! I was shocked.

I made a conclusion. The conclusion is that there is no minimum or maximum number of stereotypes in the world. It was just equal to the number of people we knew really well. People included in that list are family(closest ones: parents and siblings), best of friends, worst of enemies and miscellaneous(every person who had touched your life in ways you never knew)! Voila! I had my list of people stereotypes.

Is there any human being who has lived a life without making the statement “Gosh! You are so similar to another person I know/knew”? I am sure it is impossible to have not drawn similarities. It is the amusing function of the brain to connect unconnected dots. I think I also understood why the brain does that. Known devil is better than unknown angel.

They say that the most complex(a.k.a intelligent) of people and the most complicated of organisms are shy creatures. Hence the introvert brain(I don't know which side of MY BRAIN is an introvert!! Exceptions exist I guess!) in man does not want to relive a torment similar to the first day of school. What about First Day at school? Too many people equals too many new faces equals Stereotype Sample Generation- First Cut.

After a certain number of years the social side of the brain turns off and enters into Introvert Mode and starts mapping people to older stereotypes. This makes interaction with the new faces much more at ease because something tries fooling the brain(I am not a doctor but it is the soothing hormone. Natural pacifier! Docs please comment! :P) saying it is a familiar breed(already identified group) of people.

Once we place people in their respective segments, we start judging and predicting their behaviour. Or should I say we hope that what we predict from past experiences only happens and hope that we are not rudely surprised. In my life I have about 20 types of people I have met. To facilitate recognition first thing I do, I ask for birthdays. Zodiacs!

There are just 12 zodiacs but they help in placing people under s broader classification of people. Apart from all these categories, when I bump into another similar being of some category, I realise that they follow a similar pattern in perception to some emotions, attitude and appearances and the most important is that their family environment and choice of parters is also similar!

After pondering about all this over the weekend, I feel like I am the 18 year old me sitting amidst the many people who touched my life in different ways. I hope I don't do anything stupid like running and hugging them or something similar! If changes and differences are inevitable...is similarity escapable? It depends on how much you miss/like the person you associate the others to!!

My Lifeline: F.R.I.E.N.D.S

I am still speechless!
I have had a lot of people walk in an out of my life. Some people stay and some people don't.
Last week I met an old friend of mine. Not any normal friend, someone who has touched my life immensely. The minute we met, she gave me a hug that could not have meant anything but "Damn girl, I missed you a lot". There were issues between us that had no solution 5 years ago...But today it all seemed insignificant. She means a lot to me now, just like she did 5 years back.

I have managed to analyse my friends. I only mean the closest of the closest.

Places I met first met them:

School: 2
College: 2
Random: 3
Office: 2

How do I know that they mean a lottttt to me?

1. My sms's are more than 1 part long.
2. I am offline on gtalk and still start a conversation.
3. I skype or call often!! I hate chatting and calling people.
4. I fight when I get reduced attention or late news.
5. I yearn for a hug and a quality conversation.
6. I run around and jump when I have news to give them.
7. I can spend hours patting their backs to make them sleep.
8. I say "Thank you for your day. You made my day." after a meeting that I loved.
9. I try to make decisions for them.
10. I spend their money shamelessly and think not once to spend mine on them.

If you are one of the people in my life who I value...based on the criteria above, please never give up on me. I am a fool and I don't know how to talk...but I love you
and I mean it when I say it! Friends make my life worth it!

Theory Of Mankind:

I was in a restaurant with my team from work and this question was posed to me.
"What is love?" my boss asked.
I was astound! I love the man I am going to marry but did I know what love was?!!!
"Do you know the person you want to marry?", he shot again.
I wanted the world to open up and suck me in. I still remained speechless.
They were the ones who were high and them blabbering made sense to a sober mind of mine. But why was I so puzzled??!!!
Then came the last canon on my head. "Can you love just one person in life?".
He was my boss and I could not say much in resistance, so I entered my pensive mode. I spoke less and thought more. Thinking is sometimes the last thing I do...because I talk faster than I think. I am not demeaning myself as an individual but clarifying for the many times I say things I should not have said!
Dinner was over and people left. Nobody even gave those questions a second thought. I think they were being kind enough not to pounce on a soul soon getting wed. I left with a heavy heart but not too long after that did I find my answers.
Just like the apple that knocked off Newton's head to make him realise gravity, an sms from a guy I knew and loved in the past triggered off some thoughts.
....................................................................................
7 years ago that seemed like the definition of love...but was it?
Did I still love him now?
Is thinking about all this almost as bad as cheating on the one I love the most?
Is love just defined by marriage or social obligations?
....................................................................................

Answers:
What I had learnt about love & years back laid one of the basic of the very many foundations necessary for building relationships in life.
Yes I loved him, because that was my definition of love then and I still do because that is not the only definition of love.
Over these years, not being together with a person has only meant that the love that was between us could not turn into a marriage.
I have exactly 7 people in my life apart from family who I love without bounds. Guys and girls included. This does not mean that I lust the two "boy"friends of mine! But I love them.
When you decide to marry someone, it is mostly based on a chemistry and bodily hormones. Age is the primary factor. In my case I dont quite know which one it is!!

I can define it like this:

You marry when:
LOVE= Friendship + chemistry + hormones racing + similar interests + age + social/physical compatibility + LUCK + trust
You are friends when:
LOVE=Concern + intuition + trust + affection
You are best friends when:
LOVE=Friendship + chemistry + similar interests + social compatibility + trust


Note:When you dont marry some one it automatically falls best friends category.

Conclusion:
There is no one love in life. There is love everywhere. It follows the law of the universe. "All matter can be transformed from one form to another but cannot be destroyed".


Accepting instead of expecting will make life seem love-filled!!!

The Day Date:

A day date? An entire day spent as the first date. Something none of us might get the chance to do in this lifetime. But I got to do it and I consider myself very lucky!

Started with an alarming ring tone on my phone, “Wake up you lazy bones, I am here waiting for you!”. I woke up and rushed into the bathroom, doing something some people might not completely call a bath. I stood under the shower as I brushed my teeth and shampooed my hair. I was excited…very excited. This was the guy I liked all my life(from times I don’t quite remember) and he was here, willing to spend an entire day with me.

I wore the most comfortable pair of jeans and the first tee shirt I pulled out of my wardrobe. I didn’t have time to dress for the day-date nor did I care about what I wore. The typical me would have tried a dozen clothes before slipping into the final one. But this was too special to lose out on. I caught the first rickshaw that I saw, suppressing the haggler in me I continued to direct the driver to take me to the bus stand. The place where we had spent school days waiting for buses. I couldn’t wait to hug him but just gave a light chuckle to tease each other of our weights. The headed to the south Indian breakfast joint-Saravana Bhavan. Ordered my favourite aapam and coconut milk. I took out the school photos and we had a nice laugh about it.

We spent one hour eating and talking about our current lives. Though it had changed immensely, it was always open to each other. I had a master plan chalked out in my head but there was no time to implement it. Too short a notice. I wanted to cook for him and go on a picnic but ended up just shopping at Spencer’s Daily. A loaf of brown bread, a packet of cheese slices and a huge chips packet. We had this and an entire day.

We took the bus to a sea side point from where the sea, the forest and some sand are visible. The journey was 2 hours and we spoke about so many things, constantly hinting to how much we miss each other. We were kids back then and there was no one to talk about right and wrong. Now we were older but life had taken away our chances. We spoke about life, the past, his friends, my friends, my work, his work and our ambitions in life. As we spoke, we realised why we had not ever got a chance to be together. We reached the scenic spot and I spread my bed sheet. We sat down and spoke more about our lives. How politics on his end worked and what hobbies he had. I spoke nothing. I was amazed at how much he could talk. I didn’t know this side to him all these years.

I was facing the sea and he was facing me. After a couple of hours of non stop talking, we decided we needed a break and so I made the sandwiches. He liked the cheese at the corner of the sandwich , so he can eat the best part last. Well…I was praying god would keep the best of the day to the end. I guess my prayer was answered! I was sure he was in love with me still because I could see it in his eyes. Many years back he told me that he cannot accept love into his life because he was on earth for a reason. I wondered what kind of mission it was. I was 15 and I knew no end to imagination. I thought he was a secret agent, but wondered why he couldn’t have me as family.

After 6 hours of sweet nothings, we decided to hit the road and head back to the city. I am bad at crossing roads but not as bad as a child that needs to hold an adult. I gripped on to his hand as we made it to the other side. I wished life was so simple. I prayed I could have him through thick and thin to hold me and help me cross all my lifes paths. We reached the city and went to the restaurant where I had made dinner reservations. Crimson Chakra. I entered the place and folded my jeans. We both had a table in the middle of a beautiful pool. What could be better? He was right in front of me and there was water all around. An artificial cascade in the background as well.

I felt like I was pulled out of a romantic movie. We ordered food just to give us an excuse to be there. We were playing in the water and there was no feeling in my 23yrs that could beat that. After 2 hours of playing and eating, he pulled my notepad and scribbled in something that made life different. “I love you forever. Thank you for this beautiful day”. We paid and left. We took an auto and he asked me if he could hold my hand. It was beautiful. A kiss on my palm had never felt better. We reached my stop holding together our hands. I got off and decided I might never see him again, so climbed over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. There ended my date with the boy from my past....who had not much in my future. We parted ways and hardly met...but that day was THE BEST!

My Virtual Story:

There are things that have to be experienced in reality and there are things that can be “FELT” virtually. Even I did not know what the meaning of a virtual life was. People all around the world spoke to each other, as though the concept of distances never existed. Is this skype such a big invention after all? I was always wrong till I started doing life's silly things with my friend on skype.


Some people might not understand the amount technology has affected my life in particular. Seated in a place close to 10,000 miles away from my companion in stupidity, I spoke, I cried, I laughed, I joked and I fought. Falling in love might have been easy but nothing happened in reality.


We were not buddies who had never met in life but were one of those people whose "Absence made the heart grow more fond of each other". Life was different before we parted ways into different geological regions but was difficult once we realised that distance was not our only enemy. Time was too. I slept through his day and he slept through mine. It really meant when one said "You need to take that extra mile to make your friendship work". It was not a joke. Many many years of beautiful friendship. Nobody I knew would be happy if I threw it out.


We had a lot of factors to negate when we spoke to each other. Time lags. Phase lags. Context lags..and more! But we didn't care one bit. Valentines day came and we danced through the night. Not like other romantic couples who proposed love to the other person on that day and surely not in each others arms, but we did salsa to the music on youtube. What could be better. Flower on my ears and a skirt knee long was all that was required to make my day the best.


He was a student and I was an employee. Yes we were opposite sex but still nothing ever occurred. Life was an extended holiday with a happiness prescription to it. We spoke once in the morning and once at night. Never did we get tired or bored. Satiated...was a feeling so far fetched that nobody could see. Gtalk and skype were my saviours through this.


Everyday we didn't talk was a day that was wasted. Still nothing had changed and we were still single. We had our own fancies...of women and men. Of crushes and clouds that passed us nearby. I wish I could apologise for abusing technology, but why I didn't is a whole new different story.



Priorities changed and so did we. And mine was a new game with different new people with nothing to tame. I got away from my computer , I ran away from places, but what could anyone do, because everything was virtual. My world was a game and the elements were gone. Nothing to hold close and nothing to choose. I know that after a decade or two, be it in each others life or somewhere else, I would walk into a park and find him seated on the bench.


Nothing will be said. So we would have walked out of each others life thinking the other found us expendable. I know for a fact that he is so indispensable that nobody could replace him in my life and it would hurt me to see him so far away.


We might even walk away from each other as though we dont recognise. But the truth will be that we dont compromise. Compromise is a difficult word to explain...we just would not want the other person to compromise on commitments. Bye bye dear friend. You are worth more than just that. I love you forever and you know that pretty well.

Humanity Reaching Inhumane Levels:

Black Eyed Peas rightly came up with the song "Where Is The Love?". Sometimes it is so hard to believe that human beings are so caught up in their lives that considering another human being for what he is, has become a rarity on this so called brotherly love filled planet.


I have heard of my friends talk about Man-Elephant conflicts, ManVsWilderness conflicts, but Man turning enemy to man is something unbelievable! You might think that I am talking about Hindu-Muslim Riots or BJP-Congress Fights or The Female-Male Ego Clashes, but NO!!What we are dealing with here, are a bunch of cold-blooded, self involved species of homo sapiens! Or are these the homo homo sapiens that zoology books refer to as The New Beings??? Whichever it might be, I hate this evolution.

Case: Chennai is a bad place to be travelling in, during the hottest months of summer. Humidity and the piercing sun are the two things that can make anyone want to reach their destination ASAP( as the corporates call As Soon As Possible). I was in my cab, travelling to office on a bright Friday morning. Fridays are great days to go to work, since there is always a weekend to look forward to. I was in an animated conversation with my friend about the plans that we had made for the weekend, while suddenly at a distance at the signal I saw a small crowd on the side of the road, I knew that it could not be anything good.

Soon my cab crossed the crowd and I saw a man lying there on his face in a pool of blood, unconsciously fighting for life! I noticed that, all that the people around him had done is just make a phone call for an ambulance( this I realised later, because I saw the ambulance near my office after 15 minutes) and then carried on with their lives by walking here and there , while the partially deceased body(I assume the ambulance was mighty late) occupied the footpath built on the side of the road for people to walk on. My cab was at about 60 km/hr and the first thing that struck my mind was if I must jump off along with the first aid kit too, but I threw that idea off my mind because I did not want people in my office to call me an "Attention Seeker".

While I threw the idea off my mind, I also accompanied it with a silent prayer for his survival. What I could do as a helpless, newly employed 22 year old, I did. I called the hospital whose name I had read across the ambulance and asked them if the man had survived. They said that he lost 2 units of blood but he would survive. Google is god, because if not for google I would have not rested in peace, nor would I have enjoyed my girlie weekend that followed. Google is still god because , if god did exist , he would not allow such evil beings to evolve from such warm, loving humans. I am no atheist, but I am a nut. I sometimes get angry with the divine creature who terms himself GOD!!


How can mankind be man"KIND" if he feels no kindness to at the least to his fellow beings??? I would be willing to just about hear any justification where people say "Hurting trees, plants and animals is something we will never know about, since they have no means of expressing themselves to us", but what excuse can one give to ignore human beings? If today, one cannot be confident of help from fellow citizens during life or death situations, how can anyone expect to shower brotherly love on each other? I am no saint and I know that I might die on the road tomorrow while people go past my partially dead body ,happily chatting on their mobile phones and I will continue to fight for life till my body gives up.


Why not be selfish in THIS WAY(Considering the fact that the newly evolved homo homo sapiens have cold blood running through their circulatory system!) : CHANGE PERSPECTIVES. Continue to be selfish in a different way. This is my last resort to put some sense into the New Beings. Imagine you or the ones you love the most, lying on the road fighting "The Grim Reaper" , while having a dozen onlookers waiting for miracles to happen rather than them running to the nearest medical shop and grabbing first aid equipment and at least trying harder rather than just waiting and watching.


When one sees their loved ones in that place, miracles might happen. The person lying there helpless, is obviously somebodies son/daughter, husband/wife, brother/sister, girlfriend/boyfriend or surely somebodies best friend. Let us change a little! I could have done what my heart said the other day, worst case I might have got a lot of unnecessary attention and won a few hearts in the process but I surely would have been happier with myself! Next time grab your medi kits and make a change, life is too short. Remember that, you have that one chance to give someone some more life than they might have had without you! Make your short life well used and give their almost too short a life, a new beginning!!

The Woman I Never Knew:

Today being woman’s day, I was wondering who in my life had made me feel the most special in my life. Not only special for being a woman but special because I was me. I thought thought thought and continued thinking, till suddenly a few scenes of a childhood I chose to forget, flashed right in front of me. I was shocked because nobody including me, would have ever remembered a face like hers. She was my special woman. Special, not only because she gave me the girlish pleasures of being famous, but also because she had changed my life. Changed not only one aspect of my life, but many, all she did was she had entered it in the most graceful of ways.

Karthika was her name. She was two years younger than me and I was completing my last year in secondary school when I first realised she existed. I was 14 years old and she was 12. Puny , thin and dark is all I remember of her. Today I don’t even remember how her voice sounded a decade back. I hate myself for who I was, arrogant, naughty and unapproachable. But at the same time , I took extra care of the less fortunate ones, who sulked in a corner, ran away from people and hid behind bus seats. Karthika was one of them.

One day, just like other days I had managed to catch the bus while it had almost reached the exit gate of my school. Running across the whole length of the bus along with my other two friends, I reached for the last row, close to the back door. Hoping I would sit on the stairs of the bus, I dumped my bag onto some junior’s seat which was apparently vacant. The little girl near whom I threw my bag, picked my bag up and kept it closer to her than her own bag. I found it a little odd when I noticed how she was gripping my bag with her little hands. Thin, nimble fingers that could not even wholly grasp my bag.

I didn’t bother too much, thanks to my evil friends who enticed me with other glamorous talk. I kept hearing people mutter “Karthika Karthika” in regular intervals. That is when I first mapped a name to that little face of hers. Karthika. She had short hair , well oiled and neatly combed onto one side with hairpins to fasten them in place. I looked at her and realised she was smiling. I asked her why she was smiling and she just shook her head. Damn it! A junior did not answer me??? I was angry. Then I cornered one of the people who had been muttering Karthika’s name. Anandhi, I remember. Wisely sat close to her after karthika and my friends had got off the bus.

Then I heard a story that rocked me to my very foundation. There was a girl named Karthika in 8 B, who loved me more than her life. Love??? I wondered! Yes. She either wanted to be Aparna or wanted to be my best friend . The concept of best friend seemed very abstract to me then, but I still continued listening to the story Anandhi was telling me. Karthika had no friends but she wanted none either, except Aparna. She caught place for me every day and cried if somebody asked her for the place. I laughed when I heard this , childish arrogance I assume. How come a girl who is known to like me so much had not even uttered a single word to me in the 6 years that I traveled in that bus? This was beyond me.

Proud as I was, I went around telling everybody that I had a fan and she “loves” me more than her life. What a clown I had made her! I was oozing pride all over the place. After that day, I noticed how karthika looked at me, with no words in her mouth but loads of questions in her eyes. I did not budge. I had pride. But over the last 5 months of my life in that school, I tried giving her lots of chances to ask me whatever she wanted to. I would play “Truth or Dare” with my juniors in the bus but still in vain. I felt like I had stolen her power of speech. I got fed up and on my farewell, when I was all decked up in a sari, I went up to her and her friends and asked them to stand with me for a photo. After the photo session I asked karthika why she never opened her mouth. She said something that I didn’t understand then….I wonder if I will ever understand it. The only words I heard in what she said was “ miss you beautiful bold talkative lots friends best friend”. The grammar and the completez were up to me to do. But I was immensely touched, though my pride did not allow me to express that sort of emotion.

I walked out from the portals of that school as a strong, well mannered, brilliant, confident and warm woman. All because of that one girl, Karthika. She had made a difference in my life way beyond anybody had consciously known. She had given me a new identity( the only girl who had a FAN) , she had helped me discover a new confidence( to face my enemies and my friends), she had given me an ego boost that I did not transform into pride, she had given me the strength to fight people who did not trust me and she had taught me what platonic love is.


I received blank calls for two birthdays after that and I always knew it was her. She never said anything but my caller id said it all. On the third birthday(my 18th birthday) I did not get her call. 2 years I did not redial that number on my caller id but on Jan 1st 2006, I did. Nobody picked up the call. I forgot all about it in my New Year frenzy. March or April of that year I woke up remembering her after seeing her in my dreams. Smiling with her yellow teeth. Called that number that was in my slam book, someone picked it up and when I asked for Karthika, I only heard silence. After the moments silence the girl(her sister) asked me who I was and when I said that I was her senior Aparna, there was a vacuum in her voice and she uttered only “ If Karthika was here , this would have been her happiest moment. She really liked you a lot”.

To me all this happened like as though it was a dream. The part where time slows down and everything is heard only as muffles. She was gone. Dead and gone. She had blood cancer all through her last years of school. I wept like I had never wept in my life. Knowing that I can never thank the girl who made me who I am today , was something beyond unthinkable .I felt like I had lost my best friend though I had never even spoken to her properly once. All this happened only because both she and I , were born women and because we went to the same girls school. She was my synonym of unconditional love and that is what I still feel when I think about Karthika, the woman I never knew. This is my ode to her. Thank you Karthika, you are really someone who I truly miss. Thank god we both were born as women. Happy woman’s day!

Love Sonnet:

I see you standing at a distance and wonder how you smell...
I get closer and wonder how you feel...
I touch you and experience something beyond words can describe...
The tingling feeling that leave small goose flesh all over my skin..
I gain your trust and I mistrust in return...
I want you more than ever and decide that the union is something that sounds fabulous, I could not wait...
Little cupid was aiming well and succeeded in every shot he aimed...Love was in the air...
And then entered familiarity, the breeding season for contempt...
The union was made and seals were broken...
I was satisfied but wondered how many promises would be broken...
You stood there waiting for the big day and all I could offer was dismay...
I did not feel any pain but the tears in your eyes seemed so real that my lips quivered...
I did not love you anymore, my thirst for you was quenched and I had you enough...
You kept crying and I left the place to continue my preying...

Dreams end and reality begins...

There were times in life when I would have preferred the earth suck me in but this time it was exactly the opposite...
This time I wanted the world to get sucked in without me. For the first time in life I saw things clearly and not under the effect of my rose tinted glasses. Love was not real and the truth was that life was the only thing that is eternal. Some may contradict me while I put Life above the Almighty. Yes. Almighty is also available but not as much as Life is. Do we believe in what we see or do we believe in the mystical? A question unanswered.
I remember praying to The Almighty almost everyday of my life to give me strength to love others more than myself. In the process I woke up one fine morning realising that my entire life was wasted and that the only thing left was life and myself. Loved ones cheat, lie and back stab but there were some people who leave a soul print in your life, those were the ones that helped build life. They were the ones that lead you on, I later learned. Whether their existence continued or not, the only thing that mattered was what they left behind.
I penned down all the people in my life who I remembered and filtered it down to all the people who mattered. Friends, boy friends, teachers, family, neighbours and acquaintances. Everyone seemed to have taught me some important lesson in life. I seived it down further and found out the list of people I must apologise to and realised that I had the whole list staring right into my face. Why? Because I was blankly staring into reality.
Some people who I fought with needed an apology, some people I had forgotten needed attention , some people I had misunderstood needed understanding, some people who threw me out of their lives needed an ego boost and most of all, some people I never cared to know, needed time. I was a failure in just 22 yrs of my life. I cried all morning and realised that my tears would not matter in the salty sea filled with my actions. That day I divorced The Almighty who had never shown up.
I was living reality and I felt the urge to abuse him but knew that,for my sins I would never get access to him. Hence I started living my life instead of praying to him to help me live life. Told a few people how much they meant to me and realised the others had already gone too far. The Almighty of my life had always taken the form of "Love" and today I did not have that form in my life and hence I woke up....

New Year Comparisons:

Money has always been a wonder to me. Earning a grand sum every month has changed the most fundamental beliefs of my life, that I have so far held close my heart. One such belief was that New Year's Eve is for the wicked. Little did i know that I was told such horrifying stories to keep me from demanding outings every new years eve. Though it was my birthday, I remember new years and new years of just Sony Max or Zee TV. As usual exhausted from the birthday parties I generally have in my house every 31st of December, I forced my eyes open so I could see 00:00am of the new year. This was the trend for 19 years of my life.
Then the trend changed. In the past three years I knew what it was to be outdoors on 31st Dec. First time outside was a disaster. 31.12.2007: It was 11:45pm and I heard my phone ring. Tone: Mangalyam (from Alaipayuthe). Next thing I knew, I jumped out of my house from the 1st floor leaving all the grills open. I thought it was a momentary thing...but it lasted 3 hrs! Thanks to the punctured tyres 10 kms from home. I still laugh at my dumb attempt to see the outside world on new years eve!
On 2008 Dec 31st, the trend changed even more. I had permission to go with my friends family and I went with my guy!!!! Well I know I sound bad but I was too in love. Couldn't help it one bit.Just went out with a group of friends for a buffet Tandoor dinner. I was nearly out of college and according to my folks I had gained enough of their trust already. Only I knew what a mistake I was!!! 3 hrs into the new year I finally felt my body rest on somebody elses bed!!!
This new year, Dec 31st 2009, all the hide and seek games were over and I had earned enough trust( and money!) to go out with my guy , with no amount of shame left in my body. Ate chinese like a good girl and came back home around 2am! I did notice one thing over the past three years, the fact that I abused my suppression and never my freedom. Then reality hit me, I was finally growing up. Beautiful, smart and now with some traces of maturity too!