Belonging To Memories !

A friend in a disarming moment of guileless banter says the words, "I remember the time you...."

And you wait for them to lend you, what's yours. Your moment, your story being narrated back to you. But it's not yours anymore really. Not completely. It's their memory now.

It's a tad unnerving, yet somewhat flattering, being a part of someone else's memory.

We all are perennially in search of the perfect us. We like to paint ourselves prettier than we are. Very few have a Frida Kahlo in them ! 

But a place in someone else's memory robs us of our right to tell the story to our liking. It's a place you have no control over. It's an autocratic land where your story has been modified according to the whims of it's possessor. You are not only sharing your moments with their memory but you're also giving them the right to own it, alter it, judge it, like it, dislike it and most importantly forget it !

And yet, to imagine that someone has made a memory out of a moment you have lived, that perhaps you are oblivious to, fascinates me.

Never mind that not everyone has a certain Wordsworth stealing a mundane moment from their everyday work and making it a treasured memory worth inspiring a timeless piece of poetry !

But to think that someone somewhere remembers,say, your laughter and thinks of you, probably involuntarily, when they hear another one similar to yours, is indeed flattering. They are carrying with them something, that innately belongs to you. It has left a mark in their memory and for a moment you're with them even when you're not. You steal a moment from their intensely occupied schedule. Subconsciously perhaps, but a piece of your story has helped someone else make a memory. The romantic finds joy in this existential validation of his story, or at least a part thereof.

So, smile at a stranger. You'll never know how long he remembered it, but the slim chance that you made a memory in a person you'll never see again, donated a tiny bit of your story to be carried far beyond you can imagine, is intriguingly compelling.

A stranger I remember. A moment of joy she let me keep !

An inexplicable smile...

She got down from the bus, hair disheveled, probably from the window seat or maybe from dozing off for a bit against the backrest.

She is careful not to put a false step between the road and the last step of the bus and is trying her best to avoid bumping into the hasty pedestrians who quite clearly do not appreciate this sudden pop-up person delimiting their pace.

A few more steps and once she comfortably settles in her pace with the world around her, she looks up.

Almost automatically her eyes crinkle against the rays of the sun and it is then that you see it. In a flash of a moment. In her eyes.

The dawning of awareness of the chaotic world around her, as if a bubble engulfing her has suddenly burst.

As if, she just stepped outside a momentary make-shift world where all that mattered was planting a steady foot on the ground and not stepping on anyone's toes. Nothing else existed. And suddenly that world's gone. But realization quickly settles in.

Her eyes are now un-crinkled. Any remnants of the vulnerability of being caught unawares has left them.

She scoops out her umbrella and takes a step forward.

My car swooshes past her, the signal's turned green.


Although rather an insignificant moment in the life of a daily commuter, this moment caught me, it hooked me. Gave me an inexplicable smile. Inspired me. I shall not reason it. In a world where sometimes you have to work really hard to get hold of happiness, inexplicable smiles are keepers.

So look around. Take it in. Spare an empty moment to be filled.
And when you find your "inexplicable smile" moment, whether amidst a crazy schedule or a busy day, keep it. Let it make you feel good. Just plain good. No reasons attached.

The Perfect Storm

As gushes of dust and warm wind engulfs the city in a storm that momentarily welcomes happy and worried faces alike,and a cloak of darkness wraps the sky and you sit snugly with a warm cup of coffee at a corner of your verandah, as an unattached spectator to Nature’s play and man’s myriad reactions to another of Her unexpected quirks, you realize, that the storm is just a reflection of life,  as we know it, and it’s perfect.

That child smiling goofily at his surroundings, that perplexed mother pulling him closer and trying to find a shade, both are you. You, at that moment  when you were happy for no reason. You at that moment when you were all worked up trying to protect a loved one.

That guy with the tie running with a briefcase over his head, is you too.You,  in a moment of  struggle, trying to make it to your destination, realize your aim.

The unexplainable satisfaction you got  in doing good unto another selflessly !? Yes, it can be seen in the eyes of that security guard who helped that old man,who got dust in his eyes and whose hands were filled with heavy bags of grocery shopping, come down the stairs of the supermarket.

You get my point.

We are all living in a sudden storm. And just like the perfect book or the perfect movie that makes you smile, cry, rejoice, feel depressed or find delight in it, this storm is perfect.

And it brings moments, scattered yet organised slides of emotions which piece by piece makes up your story.

The storm makes sure that your life is worth living.That you have stories to tell.

Paulo Coelho once said, something to the effect, that when everyday of your life seems the same, you have stopped living. 

Thus if not for the storm, your life  would have been a series of similar looking, mundane slides of the same emotions. Without any reason to wake up and live another day. With nothing new to experience or  feel. You would have stopped living.


So rejoice in the storm. Be assured, that as long as it’s all a whirlwind, you’re alive.

Love the dissapointments as much as the successes.

Because it is the imperfections that make this life perfect.
 

Embracing the yesterday that made way for today...

Life is moving.
For some forward and for some others backward, and for the yet remaining, in circles. But it's never still.
And along with itself, life drags us.
We are pushed into unknown terrains while all we want to do is stay put in the comfort of our cocoon.
And in all this dragging and pulling, we grow. We grow in all our relationships, in all our responsibilities, in all our expectations, our opinions and as well as in our dreams.
But once in a while, when we look back, in reflection or maybe just out of compulsion, at us, at the marks our treaded path has left behind, we feel surprised.
"I did that, really !?'' or  "I don't believe, I said that !" or as in my case, the question that planted the seed of this blog post, "I used to write like that !?".
But, the journals that i used to keep, the last pages of my every slam book that i used to fill, or the first blog that i ever wrote, are today, all reminders that I have grown.
And I am happy with this growth. Had I not been the person who wrote all that, I would never have been the person I am today, the person I quite like being.
No. We are never the person we want to be. But in the journey of becoming that person, every now then, we should check if we would have liked ourselves, if ever we were introduced to us; Whether you like being you.

So here's to all the silly words I spoke and the journals i wrote, all the times I texted in the incomprehensible text language, all the times I slipped and picked myself my up hoping no one had noticed, all the wrong friendships I made and all the stupid crushes I had !
Here's to being dragged and pushed by life ! Here's to growing up yet not forgetting who you were !

And finally, here's to starting to blog again after almost two years but not deleting the past blogs !!