A Letter to My Dearest :)

Dearly Beloved,

www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&feature=share&v=XbGQf135-Zw

I send across the link to a very simple story, one that many of us can relate to. Simple yet infinitely meaningful, it makes you think of something or someone who changed your life, who, for just one moment, made everything better, made your view of life more clearer and lighter than it once was. In some relationship or the other - love or friendship, family or stranger - a fleeting, yet extremely meaningful and nurturing bond, that gave its utmost to provide you with something, a moment that will change your life forever.

However, it is but fleeting, as I said - although most precious, no doubt, because there is no such thing as "perfect", since perfect is a bar set a bit too high, out of everyone's reach, as "perfect" is merely a mindset, surreal and momentous. So a perfect moment, to remain perfect in your mind, ends prematurely, as set by the Grand Architect of life - God. Even as it disappears, you try hard to hold on to every little shred of the memories of that moment, saving it, so that it would, at a time, be an inspiration in any difficult moment thereon, while never forgetting that one thing, even in your most joyous moment. Your special bitter-sweet elixir of life - unique to each, yet a profound driving force.

This bit of text, one that I call "a letter to my dearest friends", comes directly from my heart, in a spiritual moment, as I was reminiscing about my own moment in the sun while I watched this little video with wonder and awe. The one moment that I will hold onto, no matter what, till I grow icy cold, oblivious to the world, when I eventually set off to meet my maker. I suggest you do too, with your most beautiful memory, as it is the one thing that will keep you fighting to the end, and continue doing its utmost to keep your hope alive, to remind you that this is a life worth living, no matter how cynical you may be and despite what you may have been through. There is still hope, no matter how obscure, for without hope, there is no life. 

The appealing subtext to its message urged me to put these words down and share it with my dearest, as it was a valuable lesson learnt, one I deigned to not keep to myself.

With lots of love, 

Me <3

Why is love such a confusing emotion?

All of us have experienced love in some form at some point, and in my experience, love takes you to such great heights, but also has the ability to accidentally drop you all the way down, and shatter you to a million pieces in the blink of an eye. I believe it's all because of the expectations attached to it, and also, the vulnerability it involves.

Besides all that, there is this issue, where one person loves more than the other, and therefore gets set up to face disappointment in various ways, and that too, repeatedly. This is true, even in the mother and child bond - the strongest of them all, then where do the other, day to day relationships stand?

So I guess there is no relationship where love is involved, where there is no pain or hurt. However, is there an easier way to handle things, to make the arguments into discussions, all the anger into mere displays of concern, where both people are both -  sensitive to each other's feelings and pleasantly receptive to each other's worries and concerns?

What I'm trying to say is that, at some point, one person gets overwhelmed or suffocated by the other person's love, so possessiveness or concern is met with a violent retort that may momentarily cut the other person short, but not put them at ease. In fact, it hurts them, and makes them wonder what they do wrong, when the only mistake they ever really made is to love a little too much.

While some prefer to dwell on their hurt and verbalize their concerns continuously, other people suffer in silence. The truth is, while talking about it till your friends know your story by heart may not really help you feel better, suffering in silence also doesn't help.  Where one validates your pain each time you pronounce the negative words, the other is like stale food shut in a box - it'll putrefy and stink up your system, just as the bad gas fills up the box the stale food is shut in.  The only other option is to move on, but then, how many times will you have to move on before you find the ideal partner who will embrace you for what you are, and love you despite your flaws? If you eventually meet them, what is the guarantee that they won't be loving you too much, and hence facing the same that you went through?

Love always tends to involve a vicious circle of some sort, no matter what the issue is, because things don't always stay easy, simple and comfortable. There is jealousy, possessiveness, expectations, compromises, dissatisfaction, distraction, disappointments, a complicated code of honour to follow, so many things to consider, and your entire thinking is expected to magically transform and shift from a "me" to a "we"...and from "I" to "us". There is a lifestyle change, an attitude change and many other changes. Most of them happen unbeknownst to the people involved, but become blatantly clear for all those around them to see.

Whether we like it or not, most of us change, at least to a given extent when we fall in love. Although it may not be such a bad thing, I feel that when someone falls in love, it should be with the entire person, not just parts of who they are, and then learn to love whatever else they get to see in them, under different circumstances. That way, they can both enjoy each other's differences rather than fight over it.

Meanwhile, love also means vulnerability, because it's almost impossible to hold back and keep lying to someone you care so much about. Them knowing you so well is at times a problem, and baring your soul to the wrong person is a constant risk. Either way, baring your soul is a given, at some point, and when that happens, the vulnerability increases, and so does the chances of getting hurt. It's like walking without shoes on sharp stones. You know that it's going to hurt you at some point - you don't know how much, but it will hurt you for sure, and you still chose to take your shoes off. The longer you walk,  the more you will get hurt, it is pretty much the same with love.

Above all, people have different priorities - that may also be a reason to hurt one of the two. Like I said - a very complicated emotion that makes use of pretty much most other emotions attached to it. Just one emotion to encompass all of it - it can be either that awesome or that terrible.

It could either make you feel alive again or hurt you to the extent that you become dead to the world - you feel nothing, you trust no one - you exist as cold, hard stone.

You could either soar or crash land, and your emotions can die a gruesome death.

People have lost their minds and some have been driven to take their own lives for the sake of love.

Meanwhile, others have used it as a stepping stone to grow - either the hurt makes them want to prove themselves or the sheer love brings out the best in them.


When love comes into the picture, there are also a multitude of sacrifices to make - to each one, it will be different, but no one escapes it, and yet we all hope for the day when we find that one person who will be worth all this.


To me, love seems to look like a double-edged sword, with one, merciless end dipped in poison. And yet, we believe that "to have loved and lost is better than to have not loved at all". How true is that?

So is there a right and/or wrong in love? Is there a limit? Is a lot of space all that necessary? Why can't things be easy, simple, comfortable and just be natural?

Tell me how you look at this, what you feel, and if you have things to add, please do.

X-men(First Class) - A Revelation

I don't know how many of you would agree with me on this, but I had a wonderful time watching X-men. It had practically everything amazing movies are made of. Above all, it had heart, struggle and a massive reservoir of determination and inspiration.
If there was something I learnt and admired, it was the fact that being different is something that can be either immensely helpful or awfully destructive, and that you can choose to deal with it the way Professor Xavier dealt with it, carefully, gently, causing the least possible harm, or you could deal with it the way Magneto did, avenging the world for being unfair to him.

Professor X - wise, gentle, classy, elegant, funny, soft and sweet, he seemed too good to be true, except for his weird routine with the ladies - the discourse on mutation! His gift of telepathy was reeeeally "GROOVY"!! :D

Although Erik (Magneto) may have chosen a more rougher path, he did seem like a very good man. Despite his pain and suffering, he still had his goodness intact. I particularly admired how he thought that Raven looked best in her natural blue form. Given the sheltered life that Professor X had, they could have been brothers - they were that similar, only differing in what they wanted...and what they wanted, was in fact, a reflection of what they were given in their lives, by the people around them.(Honestly, I couldn't get my eyes off him) ;)

Charles had a security and comfort, and so, grew up to be who he was, whereas Magneto had the worst possible punishment of losing his mother to the evil Shaw, and then being Shaw's "lab rat", and growing up alone, "at the mercy of men who were merely following orders"...now, there is almost no way that that could have been nice. Although the path he chose to follow may have been brutal and rough, I think he may not be wrong entirely.



Professor X and Magneto were an absolute treat to watch. Their friendship, their leadership, their choices, and Magneto's past. At last, my question was answered as to how Charles and Erik could have been friends.

Raven was the typical best friend, but judging from her "Heterochromia" incident, I felt she had feelings for Charles initially...with Beast, their mutual attraction seemed obvious, but honestly, I loved how she finally found her happy place next to Magneto, and I loved him for saying that he wouldn't change a thing about her. The word he used to describe her was "PERFECTION". I'd challenge any lover to beat that!

Banshee's gift seemed boring at first, but the moment he started flying, I was like "Awesome!!!" His flight with the supersonic waves were just unbelievable.

Alex, with his cute dimple and boyish charm, was the last person I would have expected to have seen sitting in that prison cell. I would have loved to know how he got in there.

Darwin - I wonder how he could have "adapted" to battle - except for the hard shell, of course.

Azaizel- he looked terrifying, but his gift of vanishing and reappearing elsewhere - that was cool. Also that pointy tail - there was something"GROOVY" about it!

Emma Frost was a vision. Beauty personified...she could have easily been a fairy or a barbie doll.

Hurricane guy - I cudn't quite get his name, but that was all he did right through the movie. Made hurricanes and all other possible forms of twisters, small, big. I don't recall him even really having aything to say.

Shaw, on the other hand, the typical villain. Seemingly indestructible because of his gift. Extremely powerful, yet so evil.

Logan aka Wolverine - the first question that popped into my mind back then was this : was he really born when Charles and Erik were young? Oh yeah...he magically heals, and is indestructible, with all that "adamantium" ,therefore immortal. His true age is difficult to define. In Wolverine(the movie), he is shown to be a little boy in 1845, so I guess he might have been quite old to the world by the time Erik and Charles found him.
However, in this movie, that scene did not make sense to me at all, because the two of them have been more persuasive in other cases, so why did they just walk off when Wolverine said "-beep-"?
My only regret is that they didn't include him, although, that one scene was punctuated with an uproar of cheers, claps and whistles in all four shows that I watched in the theatre - much more than ANY of the other scenes. Good to know that I wasn't the only one who missed him :)


So I guess, "Mutant and Proud" will pretty much sum up the whole thing. Besides, the unknown isn't really something to fear and fight, not before you know what it can do - I would like to rephrase that, at least in this case, it has to be more like - what the unknown WOULD do, because, much like us, the Homo sapiens, there are good guys and bad guys in pretty much every circle: mutants, animals, you name it, and much like us, their lives are also based entirely on their choices.

A Lovely Message :)

Meeting between Ahab (a powerful criminal) and St. Savin (a priest) written by Paulo Coelho

          

One night, St. Savin came to Ahab’s house and said he wanted to spend a night there. Ahab decided that he would kill the saint that night.

          

Even though Ahab had begun to sharpen his knife the moment the saint set foot in his house, safe in the knowledge that the world was a reflection of himself, he was determined to challenge the saint and so he asked him:

          

“If, tonight, the most beautiful prostitute in the village came in here, would you be able to see her as neither beautiful not seductive?”

          

“No, but I would be able to control myself”, the saint replied.

          

“And if I offered you a pile of gold coins to leave your cave in the mountain and come in and join us, would you be able to look on that gold and see only pebbles?”

          

“No, but I would be able to control myself.”

          

“And if you were sought by two brothers, one of whom hated you, and the other who saw you as a saint, would you be able to feel the same towards them both?”

          

“It would be very hard, but I would be able to control myself sufficiently to treat both the same.”

          

Savin and Ahab had the same instincts – Good and Evil struggled in both of them, just as it did in every soul on the face of the earth. When Ahab realised that Savin was the same as him, he realised too that he was the same as Savin.

          

It was all a matter of control. And choice.

          

Nothing more and nothing less.

What a message! Wow.

Sitting Idle at an exam - ever been there?

There really is nothing as stressful, worrying or as confusing as sitting idle at an exam.
I never really thought I would be forced into these situations before, but I just take it as one of those challenges life throws at you, puts you in places you've never been to, and honestly never thought you would be in...

I mean, these are the thoughts that were crossing my mind at that time:

1) knowing that I'm the only one who has finished so early, leaving out most of it unanswered, and not knowing anything relevant to fill pages at the very least.

2) Wondering why God chose to exclude so much of what you spent all that time studying

3)Not being able to even look around - they might think I'm cheating. It's one thing to sit idle when nobody's watching you, and something completely different when people are watching you after they think they caught you cheating, even if you weren't, even if it's just the invigilator - no - ESPECIALLY if it is the invigilator. They can even come and check what we're writing!
(By the way, I might have at least resorted to copying off my friend's answer sheet if I hadn't forgotten to bring my darned specs!)

4) Recognizing some - or most of the terms mentioned in the question, but not remembering anything related to it to magically weave something that looks like an answer out of it

5)Above all, not being able to get out of the place - not without being subjected to the collective judgment of the onlookers. Not like I would really care if I wasn't spending almost 80% of my day around them.

Hmm...so I have to while away the time somehow, hence - yet another blog post is born!

Woah! Life  has a wierd way of changing our opinions on various things. I don't remember idling at an exam - EVER. Even if I wasn't exactly the star student, I have never been in this kind of a situation - that too, not as frequently as I happen to be in now!

Being Judgmental – sometimes a good thing?

What we usually hear tells us differently, and there have been times when I’ve been very angry because occasionally, there has been an isolated incident when I failed to do the task entrusted in me to the expectations of those who gave it to me, and I have been judged based on it, as incapable or irresponsible. Taking it very personally, I would mentally keep going over it, thinking that if they were going through whatever I was going through at the time, they wouldn’t have done even half of what I’m doing. Then, another thought would pop up – what if they would have somehow managed? I mean, I would definitely justify myself because it’s me they’re talking about. Do they have a point?

After much reflection, I’ve realized that maybe in just one angle, it may be a good thing. Most of us hate to be pointed out, and invariably, humiliated. So, in a college environment, maybe this could have a positive effect? We would work harder next time, at least if it is to mentally give them the message – “Hah! Who’s incapable now?”.

Unless we throw in the towel and say “They’re right. I’m incapable – so I’m just giving up. What difference does it make anyway?” thereby closing all chances of improvement then and there, I guess the usual human tendency is to do better the next time, just to get back at those who humiliated you, or we would resort to the most healthiest way – we would try to be better at it next time, as a means of personal growth.

Whatever their intention was in pointing you out, I guess the healthiest way to handle it is to make use of the opportunity to grow – slowly, if you must, but to grow anyway. That way, if the person who was being judgmental had good intentions, they would encourage you, help you to take the next step and then another. If those people had bad intentions, then this will definitely be a way to prove them wrong. There is a good chance that those people will change their opinion of you, at some point – if that matters – like, if the person is a lecturer/teacher or anyone whose opinion of you is important for whatever reason (even if it is just for getting internal marks).

I mean, although those moments can be extremely humiliating, is it such a bad thing for them to urge you to work towards perfection?  I would like to argue that point sometimes, but then, thinking straight, I believe that maybe they need not be too forceful, but the very effort they put into their work to create an environment where everyone does their jobs to their best ability itself is something worth praising. Initially, it may seem ridiculous, but looking at it again, from a third person’s point of view, discipline and an attempt to perfection comes only from a very efficient environment, that is straight laced and absolutely determined to keep things running smoothly, and at optimal levels, so I think it’s nice to look at it as an honour to be a part of such a system instead of slacking due to negligence or laziness, and then cribbing about what a nasty system it is.

In most other aspects, I guess being judgmental is a very hurtful, annoying thing. What do you say?

(This is more of a note to myself – just thought it was worth sharing, which is why it is posted here. I would love to hear comments/suggestions/additions – anything.)