Of Love and loss....

The magnitude of a loss is defined according to the value you give it. How much we love someone is based on how they make us feel. So when we lose someone depending on how much we loved them, and what caused the loss, the pain can be anywhere between non-existent to just unbearable - incapacitating even. If you really loved this person, the length of time during which the incapacitating pain is felt may vary, but you definitely feel so burdened that it sometimes even gets so difficult to breathe. Things may have been just fine before you met them, but suddenly, everything you do reminds you of them.

There are some people who start out as friends, but something about how each of us change suddenly makes them no longer relevant in our lives, or sometimes, people just hurt us so much that even if we may forgive them, we may not be able to comfortably be around them. Some friends are good company only during certain activities, and a disturbance in another. I had a friend who once told me that friends needed to be compartmentalized - you should have your "school friends", your "uni friends", "work friends", then your "gym friends" - when you have a birthday party, you can invite all of them if you like, but you can never expect one person to be there with you in everything you do. When I first heard it, I felt a little hurt, because this is one of my best friends telling me that I am her 5-6 pm 'appointment'.

However, as I thought about it, I started to realize how true what she said was. If there is any one person who never leaves, that person becomes too familiar, and just like an old married couple, we would hate each other and keep bickering because we spend the whole freakin' day together, and we don't get our personal space to do what we like to do in our own time, alone, without having someone intrude and spoil it for us. The friends start taking each other for granted, and take turns in hurting each other until one day, one will overstep some boundary and the other would just lose it. It wouldn't exactly hurt to lose a friend you really loved bitching about the flirty gym instructor to, but there would be an uncomfortable rift. You might miss them, or you might feel relieved that you don't have their annoying presence around you anymore. Either way, it would hurt for a while, but that's the thing about friendships - there will be other friends, and you can slowly move on and just forget what happened.

Another reason why it would help to have friends compartmentalized is basically this - when things get weird with Kim at the gym, and things get super weird there, you will have Kate at work to talk to, to cheer you up. The best thing is, Kate may not even know about Kim, and wouldn't bother you about it. So if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to.

So some people, we are relieved to lose, some people we do everything we can to avoid even, but there would be one person to whom you really want to tell everything to. You really would want to hear about what he or she has to say about this thing that's going on at the gym or about something more important. That news about the college scholarship you won, it wouldn't feel the same to not be able to tell him or her about it. Of course you would be happy about it, but that nagging feeling of 'something missing' wouldn't go until you tell this person. It is the same thing (only worse) when something terrible happens.

Somehow, this person would say the exact same thing that your friend Kate at work kept telling you, but the fact that this person is saying it to you would finally make the crying stop, and you would finally feel comforted and smile. Ever heard your friend say "What? He/She said that?! That's exactly what I told you, like the last 500 times!" It isn't that you don't care about the other friend, but love is just different from like, and even though we may not like to admit it, 'I love you' is still different from 'I care for you' - you may care about the person you love, but you don't exactly love each person you care about.

This one person would be the only one you would trust with your feelings. That would either be a best friend, one who is waaaaay more important to you than Kim or Kate or anyone else OR, you would probably have the love of your life - someone who sees you for who you truly are, not like the rest of the world sees you. That's where you open up. That's who you run to. That's the person you wouldn't mind sharing your "me-time activity" with. What happens when, for some reason, you need to leave that one person? What if you're forced to get over the one thing you loved more than life itself only because you see no future there? What if, you break up, but still love too much to stay friends? Seeing them would only be a cruel reminder of what you lost.

That's when you truly know the meaning of the words "incapacitating pain". Something like that leaves you winded, and lost, and disoriented. It would be a loss so big and so catastrophic, that you just stop making plans. You feel like if you lie in bed and stay there, you would wake up one day and find the world just as it was before you met that person. However, we all do end up having to wake up and face the world sometime. We end up having to at least try to move on, if not for anything else, at least to be able to breathe freely one day soon, and not feel like there is a 100 pound weight where your heart was.


Once you get past the moments where you feel like the storm would never end, you just feel dull, cold and soulless. where once, you were light-hearted, positive and happy, you now feel like a total cynic, and you hate weddings and people who can't stop being chipper. You get through each day, living one day at a time, just feeling happy that nothing untoward happened. The pain radiates from deep within, cloaking your entire being, making even getting out of bed the most difficult thing to do. You can live normally, and no one may notice how hurt you are, but when you do see people who have what you had, that's where the anger starts. Misplaced anger - at the world, at life, at whatever caused the loss.

What our 'hearts' don't get is that what happened was simply something that was meant to happen all along. There would have been nothing you could have done to stop it. It's basically like the story of a man who had just survived a heart transplant dying of a car accident. It was his time, and so, if he had been saved from the car accident, his heart would have mysteriously stopped, even though it is brand new. If that doesn't happen, he might accidentally get electrocuted or he could have a bad fall and die of head trauma. Point is, it was this man's turn to die, so in order to preserve the balance, his death will happen, one way or another. If it wasn't his time yet, however, this man would be the one freak of nature who did have all these accidents and still lived to tell the story.

Life may play out in different ways, but the theme would eventually be the same, and all the scheduled stops would happen, whether we like it or not. We may get to a certain place in different ways, but the final outcome would always be the same. So we need to keep telling ourselves that in spite of what has happened, when you do hit rock bottom, there is no other way to go but up, so just wait for it. Hold on to your heart, nurse it back to health, because the best is just about to happen. Whether this is true or not, that is the only thing that will help you survive - hope. Because, after all, what doesn't kill you would only make you stronger, so don't run away from it. Just face it, deal with it, and hope that eventually, the 100 pound weight you carry would slowly lighten until it disappears altogether, and that soon after it disappears, your dull, cold, soulless existence would thaw out and turn into a bright and cheerful one. Hell, even if it may not turn bright pink or yellow in one burst, it would at least lighten up enough to allow you to go through your day without wishing that you never woke up.

It might be excruciating now, but one day, you will truly have gotten over it, so just believe in that day. Have hope, because no loss is ever final. It might still hurt to think about it, even a hundred years later, but you will survive the pain, and you will eventually be happy again. So just shut up and have HOPE.

On "Gray's Anatomy"

My dream job, even as a doe-eyed little toddler was to be a doctor. Something about the way my aunt (who was then studying to become a doctor) fascinated me, even when she didn't talk much about medicine to a 3 year-old me. She was the first person I adored and looked up to, the first person I wanted to be like when I grew up.

She was everything a young woman was meant to be - calm, gentle, respectful of everyone, and she had this spirit that I admired. She wasn't like everyone else. She was special - not because she was doing the near-impossible, becoming a doctor, but because of the person I saw - she was beautiful inside and out. Anyway, I grew up as a fan of biology - this time, it was not because of my aunt, who had gone away to have a successful career, but because I took a genuine liking to it.

I loved studying about plants and animals, microorganisms, and all the cool things that could be done with them - hence the choice I made, of doing Biotechnology. I always - ALWAYS enjoyed studying about the human body, though. It was my guilty pleasure. I did want to become a doctor, but I saw that it took much more out of a person than what it gave a person, which made me reconsider and take the more interesting option of Biotechnology.

People who wanted to become a doctor had to study like there was no tomorrow to get into Med School. Then, they had to pay fees like there was no tomorrow too. Then, they had to work again, like there is no tomorrow. Study, practice, work, give exams - all with good reason - they work with the lives of people. If they mess up, people could, most definitely end up dead. Then, they come out of Med School after many many years of living like hermits, and continue to live the extremely stressful, extremely one-minded life. My reason for not choosing that life was that I can't live like that - I can't completely concentrate all my time, energy and effort into only one thing - the uncertainty of it would kill me. It's like I have only one path - only one choice.



My defining feature is the fact that I do many things - it is just who I am. I LOVE change, and I love to keep changing what I do, or how I do it, and I love to keep changing the little things that can be changed. I write, I sing, even on stage, I listen to music, I study, I like to do my own laundry, I LOVE to keep my room clean and decorated, and that's just a few things that I like to do - I love to be spontaneous, to travel, to make friends, take pictures, edit them, and a lot of things along those lines. I love to be passionate about life and the various things that I can do - I like to discover new things to do as I go along. I also love to proverbially 'stop to smell the flowers' as opposed to just breezing by without even noticing them.

Besides all that, I'd like to have a life where I could disappear one day and expect to not be bothered for a little while, because I enjoy spending time with myself. I'm not a loner, but I enjoy my own company - I like to think about things - things that don't have to have any relevance to my own life. If I became a Doctor, that would be just out of the question.

I did enjoy my decision of choosing to do Biotech for my Under Grad. However, when I 'met' Stem Cells, it was love at first sight. I saw it on TV, as a doctor was explaining it on a programme as a new method of treatment. It sparked my interest, and the more I read about it, the more I got drawn into it. It made me realize that my thing with Biotech was just a fling, a sort of an attraction when compared to the sinful passion that kept me pursuing Stem Cells. I know I sound super-nerdy when I say that, and even though I am anything but super-nerdy, Stem Cells drew me to it, like a moth to a flame. It soon became an addiction. If I were a dog, the mere mention of 'Stem Cells' in the background would make my ears would do that thing where they'd get all pointy and turn all around, trying to locate the source of the sound.

Now. It isn't that I have no idea what it feels like to be like that - being 'all work and no play'. After my Under Graduation, I chose to do my Masters in Stem Cells - that was like the most natural decision...like, duh - right? It was in a field of research, in Biomedical Sciences, and more specifically, Regenerative Medicine. Here, I did get to study in detail about Stem Cells, the human body, and I used to be so charged, enthused and excited about every single day of lectures. However, what made things difficult there was how there were a set group of people I had to meet with. People get all narrow-minded, judgmental and cocky when thrown into smaller, isolated groups. Add that to competition where people would metaphorically rip each others' throats out to get ahead, or for the lecturers to throw them a bone(give them their approval) - now that in my opinion, is a disaster waiting to happen - it did happen, and I imploded in a way - that sort of brought me to reality. I fought tooth and nail too, because - hello, I was in love with the subject so I wasn't going to give up that easy. I took as much as I could until it seemed like a pointless thing to continue to fight. I had to forfeit, only with the condition that I would go back to it later, on my own terms. Life wasn't going to wait for me to keep trying like that - it was time to move on, but this was most definitely unfinished business where Stem Cells and I were concerned.

I did love the subject, and it was, an all-consuming love, but the competition and pressure was totally not me.  To me love isn't about fighting like that - I didn't want to be incessantly anxious, upset and worried. The relationship can't be 'abusive' and successful at the same time. I wanted out, at a point - didn't like anyone I was with - I really wanted to start over, and fate sometimes has an odd way of giving you what you asked for. I wanted out of the place, not the subject, but I ended up losing both, in a weird twist of fate. I was relieved to be leaving the place, but completely and utterly shattered to be leaving my subject that all the trouble only made me to only love more. I wanted it more fiercely now. If Stem Cells was my boyfriend/spouse, then he was one that came with a horrible, twisted and very complicated family that never left.

I watched a few seasons of Grey's Anatomy recently, and watching the surgical interns vying for their supervisors' approval and the way they went hours without sleep, and just studied and worked and loved it reminded me of how I loved (still do, by the way!) being at lectures when I was studying Regenerative Medicine. I'm back doing a Masters in Biotech, but my one true love, will always be Stem Cells. I will find my way back to it one day - I know I will.
 

The thing about having a profession even remotely related to medicine is that you put the patient's life before your own. Besides, the amount of work you are expected to put in is overwhelming, and every other thing in life would take a back seat, and after being constantly put off, it would eventually get so conveniently forgotten until everything else disappears and ONLY your work remains. That would mean that I would have no time for friends, no time for myself, no time to be myself or a mother or a wife. Not the way I would like to be anyway - I love to do MY best in everything that I do. So if I chose an all-consuming profession like medicine, I would end up losing myself and everyone I hold close at some point along the way, and life's too short for such massive regrets. That's exactly what I hoped to avoid when I didn't choose to become a doctor. Of course I would absolutely love to get the rush and the heady-excitement that I only get when I study about the human body, but the overall effect would be that the other parts of my personality would just fall away one day - and that, I have promised myself, that I will never allow to happen.

So although my biggest regret remains the unfinished business with my beloved Stem Cells, my perspective is that I will let it go for now and focus on what I have in hand. Maybe there was a reason why I was denied. Maybe not, but I get ONE life to live, and I sure as hell am not going to waste it worrying about what would have been when I could be making the best 'version' of the today that I am given. My point is - what will happen will happen - no matter how hard you try to stop it. So why waste time worrying and obsessing when you can just stop and smell the goddamn flowers?

Of marriage and bright futures.

What seems like a mindless occurrence in all these years, the whole practice of following tradition suddenly gains meaning when our turns are up.  Everyone I know seems to be talking of weddings, either already done or coming up, so I thought I'd write a blog entry about it.

In Indian societies, women in their 20s have all the aunties and uncles in their society to answer to, if they are still single. People try to set them up with guys they know, or they talk for hours on the benefits of marriage, which I don't essentially disagree with - I'd just rather not hear the same speech being repeated a million times over.

Besides, all girls want to be married, but we also want out Prince Charming on his white horse. Other people reminding us of ticking biological clocks and waning youth doesn't necessarily help us speed anything up, because, as with all things in the universe, our weddings only happen when they are meant to. I choose to do my own thing until my Prince Charming shows up.

Jokes apart, there's much to be considered when we think of marriage - the responsibility of being a wife, a mother, cooking, cleaning, washing, picking up after other people - it all just comes with the lot, adding to the responsibility of being a woman.

The woman of the house never gets a holiday. In fact, when everyone does get a day off, she suddenly has a lot more to do. More people to pick up after, more party messes to clean and so much more cooking to do. If she even gets an hour to watch TV, she'd probably spend it in quiet meditation, snoozing a little, with her feet up on a cushion.

The question in the mind of every prospective bride-to-be is the same - will he be worth all the work and the sacrifices that come with the new role we take on?

It isn't just about the wedding that everyone worries so much about, but the actual marriage. Will he stick with you right through? How about the times when you're the new awkward bride, tiptoeing into his family room and some distant aunt or cousin decides to be overly judgmental and overbearing?
"I mean, can she even cook?! Our poor Munna, whatever will he do when the food on the table tastes like sawdust?"
How would he react to that? Would he join them in their jeering?

What about the difficult days of morning sickness, bloating, and then labour? What about when you're trying to soothe a sick, crying baby? All the messy times of dirty diapers and the spit up? And how about teenage troubles? The whole point of marrying is so that we don't have to do it all alone, right? Will he hold up his end? Will he be supportive?

Only one way to find out, and we all still get into it, none the wiser. We know the answers to some questions, and yet, there is a lot that could be different, because we all marry different people - some have very sweet families, while some have scary parents and sniveling, complaining, annoying siblings. Will I become the regular Sue who talks about the woes of a woman, and how terrible men and their families are when I meet my friends? Or would I remain the relatively calm, reasonable, objective person I am right now?

I will not blame all men, but I still agree that if he expects her to be an angel, he needs to at least try to create heaven for her. Although some husbands are truly wonderful, a lot of them aren't. I wouldn't want to be a part of petty fights and ego battles for sure. That wouldn't just be exhausting, but beyond disappointing. An accepting, mature, kind, gracious and friendly attitude would be ideal, but would I get lucky to find a new Zeus? I mean, what would be the whole point of proving that one is superior to the other? I think that when 2 people get married, they should function as partners of a team, and should work things out without wanting to tear each others' hair out. We all want soul-mates, but not all of us get them.

I long for slower times when people compromised a little for each other to make a marriage work, instead of rushing into divorces. The divorce rates are scary high, and what's worse, they continue to climb. I definitely wouldn't want to end up as a statistic, as just another divorcee. I'm not much of a Luddite, but I wish that the world would slow down a bit. The way things are going, it's just a whole lot of uncertainty. There's so much change, so much that is not in our control, we are actually in tech heaven, which translates to us becoming couch potatoes and extremely anti-social. Competition makes more people turn into human vultures, hungry for more meat. No more genuinely uplifting, encouraging communities. They're all congregations of carnivorous birds now. Like I said, it wouldn't hurt for the world to slow down a tad. A little old fashion never killed anybody. I prefer the olden day virtue and values that made them all so human. Communities that were built to fortify the collective, instead of setting out alone. I want those things back. I want someone who would appreciate those things too.