It is often a chosen few days of the year, such as one’s birthday, that make one feel different somehow. One of such days in the lives of many Indian women in North India, is the day of Karvachauth, celebrated each year with renewed faith in a lot of things and forces I may not be the right person to talk about. But the positivity and fervour that the day instils in these women (and as I see it, some men too!), adds a brilliant shade to the otherwise mostly- black & white, palate of life. I discussed this festival and also wrote about it last year, so for those of you needing a background, here’s where you go –https://expressedd.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/karvachauth/
Thoughts in my head this year around..
Ah you sweet dear beautiful moon!
She competes with you every Karvachauth to look prettier and nice.
And when she finally sees you in the dark sky, after waiting for what seems like decades each year,
She resigns with a smile, to your beauty, as her beau resigns to hers.
A festival celebrating love and rituals, hopes and promises,
The fervour leaving in the hearts that love, a feeling of ‘HAPPILY COMMITTED EVER AFTER’.
Only she could hear the music,
Some drum roll, some violins.
Only she could dance to the tunes,
Some free style, some practiced moves.
Her happy heart brought smile to her face,
Her happy face brought smiles to his heart too.
For reasons she didn’t know, she skipped around in her head,
For reasons he knew, he too jumped a trampoline or two.
Their unsynchronized reasons of happiness,
But synchronized by love perhaps?
Their unknown reasons of smiles and shine,
Secretly known to their hearts too well.
They’re too busy to halt and feel,
Their increased heartbeats, the change in their rhythm.
So the hearts play along, having their own fun in this-
As these two- she and he, play along with the magic that this RUSH IS.
Some say that time flies. Some have no time at all. And there’s this other lot of people who like to while their time away. I interestingly, was in conversation with time yesterday.
I had this peculiar dream last night, where as unrealistic and funny it may seem, I was in conversation with ‘time’! Nothing fancy, we talked about this and that, and then it suddenly decided to, like in most other cases, run away! Now while we were at it, Mr. Time, narrated how it experienced so many different characters in it’s course everyday, and that tonight it intended to interview me to no end, with only one question and wanted me to answer it in full detail, not leaving until it was satisfied with the explanation. The question was a pretty simple one, with no frills, and open ends for an elaborate answer- ‘Tell me dear, what does the concept of ‘time’ mean to you?’
Now to be very frank, this question left me baffled! For, in this world of twisted conversations, nobody had asked me such a simple and straight question in the longest time 😉 So after thinking about this for a few minutes, I put my answer on the table with decent ease. Rather calmly, and with a confident smile, I said, ‘Time is magic, and that will explain it all!’. Satisfied, Mr. Time left with no further questions.
Interestingly, this conversation was not as simple as it seems here. It left me overjoyed with the realisation that magic is everywhere and that time truly is magical! I wouldn’t say that time is a commodity. Neither is it a virtue or a quality. Rather, it is an elastic concept which accommodates all- the past, the present, and the future too. When in love, and in company of loved ones, time would fly. When in pain, time would pause, and when in a rush, time would hurry too. Adaptive as it is, time wonderfully aligns all to a schedule like no other. All in all, time is a beautifully crafted, personalised, yet the most practical gift of magic to mankind.
The conversation last night left me happy as I thanked my stars for the gift of time, and the choice of being blessed by magic too. It is ‘time’ that bonds one to others, and it is ‘time’ that detaches some due to space.
The tick-tocks I thank,
For they chose me to make me smile.
The hands of time as if chosen to play from me-
A rhythm of life, a lifetime of tunes, some magic, some trysts, SOME TRIALS!
– Stuti
P.s. Time stops for none, and still patiently waits for you to find that special one 😉
That year as the winters approached,
It became cold like it always did.
Sweaters were out, mufflers galore,
Winds loud and chilled.
The fog made it white and bland,
Even if beautiful because of the blur.
The stars all fought for attention,
For the fog hid them from the pretty sighing girl.
There but seemed to be a warmth around,
It was different, new and nice.
A glow in the eyes, a red blush on the cheeks,
They seemed to be competing, those age old rivals- THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE AND WINTERS OF THE WISE!
Blue, the colour of fantasy,
Albeit a pink for some.
Blue, the water, crystal clear,
Albeit the not-so-blue one.
The sky a blue, or bluish black maybe,
It’s all out there, and wide, so wide.
And blue is that patch of glue,
She accidentally but happily, spurted on the aisle 😉
He likes the blue, and she likes it for him,
He wants his walls blue, and so she blue- tints all the glass around them.
She but hates the other blues, and so he handles them for her,
His happy blues, her not-so-happy ones.
Blue is a colour, not once does he think beyond that,
She but works all around it, though not many times deliberating at that!
And so they knit their story blue- his colour, her situation,
A common thread in the love, a reason for no reason, and yet reasons UNSPOKEN.
And while there was light and bright all around,
And glitter and shimmer too,
The moon up there felt a little lonely.
For it was only its territory,
To light up the dark skies each night,
And bring light and hope to those lost on the roads.
So it looked around for signs of the old days,
Still full of its light and brilliance,
And still ready to show off its beauty to the admirers.
When suddenly, it noticed a couple down there,
Enjoying a simple date under the moon lit sky, smiling and lost in beautiful thoughts,
Moon- light gleaming in their eyes, and light tears of happiness just around there.
Only then did it dawn that there will always be some extra light and fancy all around,
But you must shine no matter,
For it will nonetheless matter to a few, who smile ONLY WHEN YOU DO!
Before I present today’s poem, a little background on the theme.. Karvachauth is a celebrated festival in India and is celebrated with a feverish zeal by married Indian women all across. Popularly, the festival is about the wives fasting the whole day, without consuming any water or food, all for the well being and long life of their husband. At day end, they break their fast, only after seeing a pretty full moon in the sky, and praying for the lives of their husbands to be as long as that of the moon. I feel, that interestingly enough, the moon on this particular day, looks even more beautiful than the other days 🙂 Now here I write today, a poem on this warm sentiment, that somehow renews the faith and bond of these couples.
Pretty as she is,
She gets ready in the morning, like any other morning.
But today is special they say,
For it’s the day she will dress up and fast all day, for him.
With a zeal she shares with no other day she fasts on,
She wears her favourite reds-
Nail paint, saree, lip colour, and finally, on her head,
A red line of that vermillion powder called sindoor.
Patiently, she spends her day fasting,
Blushing every once in a while,
Cursing the next moment out of hunger,
And then suddenly again, smiling at her own self and plight!
It’s evening, and now she begins to get impatient,
Enjoying it nonetheless, she waits eagerly for the moon to show itself,
And enchant her with its beauty,
For it’s the moon that she will pray to, for his long life.
At half past ten that night, when she finally does see it there in the sky,
She can’t but stop looking at this orange white beauty.
When suddenly she is very aware of her husband looking at her,
Admiring her beauty in turn, appreciating her dedication, smiling lovingly.
Forgetting everything and anything unpleasant, if any,
He makes her drink her first drop of water in the day,
And then makes her eat her first morsel in the day,
And so ends the day, faith renewed somehow, LOVE STRENGTHENED IN ITS OWN BEAUTIFUL WAY.
The topic I decided to write on today is a rather complex one, and yet it is the simplest of the subjects most people claim to be experts on. So I will not be judging whether they’re good judges, or whether they can’t judge on even the most basic of the criteria, and what I will present here, is my own view on this!
LOVE. Luckily, I opened my eyes in this world to be greeted with this superb emotion called LOVE. Surprisingly though, beginning with not knowing what it meant, even today, a good more than twenty years from that day, I haven’t been able to settle on one definition of this word.
As a child, I was sure this word meant something very comfortable, something very nice, and something I could take for granted in my happy world. Growing up, teacher gave it several meanings, even tried to define it, and this is when friends taught me meanings they alone thought were right. It meant everything from a feeling of mushiness, to affection, to attachment, to something that brought joy, and also something movies seemed to give a lot of importance to. My dictionary today lists 28 meanings of this word! Oh God, who wouldn’t get confused?! Most movies seemed to be revolving around the sole subject of love. Every song I liked seemed to be about love. My friends were busy falling in love with some other people, my dad was in love with me and his work, my mom said she loved me, I loved my sister, and my small neighbour kid loved his bicycle, while that little child I knew down the street loved only his chocolate (or so I thought!). So up until a good number of years, love seemed to be those rose tinted glasses which were meant to make everything happy.
And then one day, I read the papers wide eyed, to see that just because this man in the news loved this woman, who wouldn’t agree on marrying him, he killed her! That day, love gave itself one more meaning in my head. Something very contrary to what it had been so far. I thought about it for several days, and finally decided that this too involved the happy love I’d known so far, only ending bad. I felt better.
Each day after that day, I tried to look for love in lives. I was surprised the way I’d missed these nuances so far! How could I have not seen that love in that my maid showed to me when she cleaned my table everyday? It never crossed my mind to thank my mother for the love she showed to me each day, by cooking the most amazing food, and making sure I ate healthy. It surprised me when I realized that I’d never made an attempt to appreciate all the love my father gave me every day all day, by doing what was best for me, and making me do the best too. My sister – how could I not acknowledge her love in pampering me even though she is the younger one? Wasn’t it love when my friends laughed at even my not-so-funny jokes?
Today life patiently still goes on to teach me what love is. Almost every day I see love in newer forms. Surprisingly, I don’t realize it’s love when I see it, but thankfully, I understand it if not then, a little later. And it makes me smile, each time I understand it. Now what amuses me, is that if this emotion is so pretty, why do some people deny its existence? So much so, that they will frown when told that they are loved? Or that they should love?
There isn’t enough love in this world, they say. And yet, embracing love can bring you the happiest feeling ever. To love isn’t easy, but it is definitely easier than to hate! Here, I come to the most important part of my post today- expressing love! When you know that love is magic, and that it makes things easy, why not express it? Most people I know, hesitate in expressing their love, even though I’m pretty certain that they intend to love. I wonder why it’s so difficult for some. Your manner of expression could vary, your style could be one never used before, but expressing love nonetheless makes sense. Anything from a simple smile, to a tight hug is a brilliant expression of love. For some, exchanging silence could be an expression of love, while for others, blabbering all the time could mean love. A friend i know, simply drops in little ‘I love you’ notes to his people when he feels love for them. Why wait for a perfect moment to express it? Go all out. Express your love where you feel it. Paint the world in tinted colours, for expressing love is probably the simplest way of showing it, and also probably the easiest way of minimizing hatred.
Love isn’t easy, but it’s definitely worth the effort.
– Stuti
Love. And how I see it.
P.s. I have been working on this post for the longest time, and as surprising this is to me myself, this was not one of the easy posts that I have published here. A thousand thoughts run in my mind as I write here today, and a million people and their way of expressing love crosses my mind. I’m unable to augment all, but I really hope this is a beginning of understanding this complex emotion, and lays a foundation stone to start a discussion here on this beauty.
expressedD 