Why can't there be a perfect ending to each story?

I fell in love .... inspite of my deficiencies .... But just couldn't know how and when .... just couldn't know at all .... It was unintentional, unintended ..... it shouldn't have been ..... I am n't the right person for you perhaps .... yet this heart is just not listening .....
My whole world has changed upside down .... I am still not been able to understand .... bikhar sa gaya hei sab kuch jaise ...... ek taraf yeh guilt khaye ja rahi hei..... dusri taraf dil ko samjha nahin paa rahi hun.... durr jaana chahati hun, ja nahin paa rahi hun...ek essi koi cheez kheech ke, baandh ke ab tak roki hui hei... apne aap ko chudaa nahin paa rahi hun iss bandhan se ..... I am just not being able to free myself from this bonding, this attachment .... in spite of my deficiencies that I know ....

Can I control whom I fall in love with? Why can't I tame my heart? Why am I not been able to tame this unrelenting heart?

Falling in love with someone "who loves you but isn't in love with you", perhaps......
Being fond of someone very very much and being in love with him or her are perhaps two different things .... There is indeed a vast difference between "loving someone" and "being in love with someone". Why do people get into one-sided love? Humare mann mein jaise achanak feelings aajaate hein, waisa hi feelings dusre ke dil mein kyun nahin aate? Pyar humesah do tarfaa kyun nahin hota? Hum apni khamiyaan jaante huye bhi, kyun dil lagaa bethte hein.... apne khushi ke liye, kyun kisi ke saath khilwaad kar bethte hein, why do we forget about our short comings, our deficiencies? Kya soch ke pyaar kar bethi? Yeh kyun dil ko samjhaa nahin parahi? This is not the real love then.... Agar wakai mein sacha pyaar hotaa, to dusre ki khushi jiss mein hoti, wohi dil chahata ...yeh to selfish wala pyaar hei.... apne ko khush karne wala pyaar. How can I be so selfish? Even after knowing everything, why isn't this heart listening and letting go?

Loving someone who doesn't love you, who is fond of you, likes you but not in that way, who loves you but in the same way as he loves others, who doesn't even know, who isn't even aware of the feelings, is like reaching for a star, you know you'll never reach it, but you still keep trying .... this heart just doesn't listen, even if when I am aware of the practicality, par mann ko samjhaa nahin paarahi. Sab kuch pre-planned kyun nahin ho paata? Why couldn't I come to know of my own feelings before? Why couldn't I stop myself from going further? Yeh dil kisiki suntaa kyun nahin?

Main durr jaane ki koshish karti hun to yeh dard bardaasth nahin hotaa, durr reh nahin paa rahi hun. Humesha, har wakt paas rehna chahati hun, yeh mann nahin maanta durr jaane ko. But looking at myself, aapne khamiyon ko jab dekhti hun, to durr bhagne ko dimaag kehta hei, durr chali jaaun, bahut durr...., par yeh dil durr jaane ko de nahin raha hei...... iss dil aur dimaag ke ladhai mein bich mein rehke main peesh chuki hun, ...... kiski sunnu?? This intense pain is killing me now..... You would be in pain but still would be craving for the special someone, even if knowing that he could never be yours. Why do people dream? Baar baar kyun kichi chali jaa rahi hun? Why amn't I being able to tame my heart? Why amn't I being able to shed off this selfishness of mine?

It's not easy being in love with someone who means everything that you want and have them not feel the same about you! Then again, it's not easy having someone love you and think you are everything they want and you don't feel the same about them....

Can I control whom I fall in love with? Why can't I?
Why can't this love be pre-planned? Why didn't I and couldn't I know whom I was falling for? kyun achanak se pyar aataa hei, sab ulat palat ke chalaa jaata hei. Kya milta hei is dil ko esse dard deke? Why can't I open my eyes to reality? Why am I still wanting something that I know myself that I can't have? That I am perhaps not worthy of getting.. main asli hakhdaar nahin hun...par fhirbi kyun mann maan nahin raha?

jitna bhi koshish kar rahi hun durr jaane ko, sab bhull jaane ko, kyun baar baar mann wahin le jaata hei. Why amn't I being able to be normal like before? Why amn't I being able to be practical? Iss mann ko kyun nahin samjhaa paa rahi hun? Kyun kaaboo mein rakh nahin paa rahi hun?

I don't know why it feels so right when its so wrong, when I know my own failings, my own short-comings.... I cant understand myself, I can't trust my feelings any more. Why did I and how could I not know? that I am falling in love ...
Apne aap se, apne mann se tab se ladhti aarahi hun..... I want to stop myself from thinking about him, have been trying so so hard, but amn't been able to... want to take my thoughts away, want to concentrate on something else, want to keep myself busy in some work, but I amn't been able to take him away from thoughts ... kyun nahin bhullaa paa rahi hun? jitni koshish karti hun durr jaane ko, his thoughts keep coming back. Why are you playing with my feelings, Bhagwanji?

Aakhir main khud kya chahati hun? Durr jaana chahati hun, par durr reh nahin paati ... paas jaa nahin shakti. I want to sleep, want to remain lost in deep sleep, but these sleeping pills are no more effective, they no more are able to induce sleep .... har cheez se mann ugg chuka hei..... why can't I get my mind, my heart blank? Apne hi dil pe apna hi kaabu nahin? ... being with so many people around me, yet remaining cut-off, forlorn, lonesome, all alone... so far away ... lost in thoughts..... bheed mein hote huye bhi tanhaa.... there are so many people around me, everyone loves me so much, they care for me so much but I have become like blind, yeh dil kuch aur dekhta hi nahin, kuch aur samajhta hi nahin ... I am failing to see beyond him, failing to think beyond him.
Sabse bhaag rahi hun...... When I know the reality, when I know that I am day-dreaming, when I know of my own short-comings, still I am not able to control my feelings, why am n't I being able to rein in my feelings, my heart ? ... Why do I continue to day-dream?
When I am fully aware of what should be the practical right ending to the story, why am I still looking for a twist? I have become so confused, confused about my feelings, confused about my selfishness, confused about everything ..... Why am I failing to see beyond my own happiness each time?
Yeh dil kisiki suntaa kyun nahin hei! Will I be able to rein in my feelings, this uncontrollable heart? Why amn't I being able to let you go?

Let the time take its own course

"If you love something, set it free;
if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was"
Sometimes it's very essential that we keep within ourselves and hold ourselves back from others ... instead of thinking about others, we may think about ourselves and let time take its own course. There are a lot of things that we really love -- our parents, husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend or children. One may even be loving his/her car, bike, home or even his/her new mobile phone.

But asking myself a weird question, 'Do I love myself?' Do I love that person I see in the mirror standing in front of it every day? If someone finds that he has many things in life to be grateful for but is still not happy with, the reason may be because he hasn't learnt to love himself.

Now if I analyse even more further and go into my imaginations .....

Imagining that there was someone with whom I had to spend the rest of my life with. I had to spend every minute of every day with this person, day in and day out. This person is the first I see when I wake up in the morning and the last person I see when I go to sleep.

This person is there on all my life's special occasions: my birthday, my college graduation day, my wedding and finally, my funeral. This person is there during all of my life's ups and downs. This person shares my sorrows and my joys.

When I are down, only this person can cheer me up. When I fall, only this person can pick me up. When I set a goal, only this person can give me the motivation and confidence to achieve it. This person will never leave me and is the only one I can truly depend on.

And now suppose If I didn't like this person, wouldn't my life be absolutely miserable? I would be forever stuck to a person I didn't like. I wouldn't be able to do anything! This person is ME!

I am the most important person in my own life!

When one really loves someone, he always want the very best for him or her! He would do anything for him/her. He would make sacrifices for him/her and defend him/her if anyone speaks badly of him/her.

The same thing should go when one loves himself.

To love one self is not to be selfish; to be selfish is to impose onto others for them to love us only the way we want. To love oneself is the first step into being able to love others with an open heart, with understanding, with full devotion by giving them the best of us, and not by giving them all of us without having paid the same respect and attention to our own nature as we do to them. Our love for others is somewhat incomplete if we cannot love our own selves, and it makes sense, how can we love others fully and give them the best love we have when we cannot love the person we are???

So sometimes it's better that we lock ourselves up from others and enjoy being with ourselves ... only me and myself .... and let the time decide on its own. Perhaps doing so will also cure my emotional dependency as well.

Uncontrollable emotions

I am screaming in my head...
Over and over I scream inside my splintering mind in the hope that if I scream loud enough, you will somehow hear it... But you perhaps never do... and why should you? How would you hear my screams?
I was never able to tell you.... so you will never know. All you know is that I say I love you... but you will never really know... about these heartbeats that are still yearning for you...

Like an uncontrollable wildfire, I'm engulfed.. completely immersed in love for you..
Sitting here and talking to myself, rehearsing all the things I want to say to you, the next time you come before me... But I am afraid I will never be able to say them to you.. i know it's too late now... and i will just be left with all the painful stings once again...

I'm caught writhing in the different loves I feel for you. Still lost in your love as if you are my other half, Loving you as my best friend, Loving you as a lover for all the lil things you do and for all the ways you make me feel...i know you think it’s weird... i know it's grossly wrong of me to do so now... I know you will again say "move on now...i m now gone..."
but believe me, i have tried a lot... but i am powerless, helpless.. i can only love you... Now it has become beyond my control...
Can I somehow get salvation? from this uncontrollable force that pulls me in towards you and refuses to let go? I'm bleeding out from all these pores.... this heart aches for you... I'm trapped in these dreams, but you are still always out of reach... it hits me hard and each tear that denies being shed, leaves the lingering feelings of death.

I never could tell you, because I was afraid I might lose you, that fear of losing you forever stopped me from disclosing my feelings, what if you had said "no"...,
and now i will never know....if you could have loved me, if i had professed my feelings for you on time! I only sit and wonder.. What if? ... What if i was the one you had chosen?... I could have you with me to share all my breath, my every breath..i could have talked with you at any time I wanted to, i could see your smile anytime i wanted to, i could hear your heartbeat at anytime i wanted to... i lost you.. i lost you forever... it's killing me, these thoughts...

I know you don't have the same feelings for me, as i have for yu.... i know now it's late... i wont have your love ever...
and it hurts, it's definitely killing me to know that you are not mine... you will never be...
but i still want to be near you.. i still want to hurt myself
and feel nothing more but this pain of an unrequitted love...
I can't breathe but I can't leave too...  It's so painful, but is so relieving as well... so i still love you...
I don't know if it's right or wrong... but I can't stop myself from loving you...

a forbidden love that goes beyond physical attraction... down to deeper knowledge of one another.... a sense of inexpressible profound happiness, peace to the heart having the person on the other side of the call or sms or just looking at his photo... but you still can't have that person, no matter how much in love you are with him... maybe someday........at least no more "what if i had.........."
sometimes that means you are sharing pieces of yourself, the ones that you have kept hidden from others... sometimes it means a few moments where deep in your heart and soul you know that's where you belong.
when you get to look into his eyes you know  you are seeing his entire self, and you know that he is seeing yours. these things can be more intimate than any kiss... or anything else. that person almost seems to be your "soulmate". He is your friend, your campanion first. and this deep intimacy builds. it builds so much that just looking into one another's eyes, wrapping your arms around each other and standing there is the most beautiful moment in the world. You fall in love with that person. but sometimes, you can't totally have him... because he is now someone else's...
Even though i try to remain silent, not giving you any message, but my heart craves for your smses, at least one from you... even when i know that is perhaps wrong on my part... and when you ask me "how are you? why aren't you replying?" I smile and I cry bitterly, both at the same time ... thinking about what i missed having in life!..You
Your care and your affection still binds me and i am unable to move away from you...
i am confused as to what to do ... neither am i being able to go away from you completely nor am i being able to stop this heart from craving for your affection...it's amazing how every ounce of you can miss someone so much like you need him to feel like breathing.. but i am just afraid that this madness of mine might put you in trouble and i will never want that ever to happen...
i want you to be happy always, in peace with your new life... i want to remain your friend all through life, but my feelings come in the way...

Being Human

*** The post is about how I came across a little incident that gives me hope that not all goodness has gone away, there are still some kind-hearted souls around. I would like to thank Housing.com for having given me the opportunity to write about it. More can be found about them here. *** 

My day had got off to the worst possible start. I had worked late into the night and so woke up late too. But I had got a severe headache as well. Even though I wanted to take a leave from my office and stay back at home, I couldn't do that as I had an important meeting scheduled for the day. I wasn't feeling too well. To add to my woes, my maid Shanti didn't turn up that day. I was feeling hungry but when I looked into the refrigerator, I found no cakes or bread or any other ready-made food item. I didn't have that much time to cook something for breakfast, not even enough time to prepare a cup of tea. So I had to rush for my office without having my breakfast. But my woes didn't end at that. Just as I was walking down the stairs, I slipped and fell down the stairs, landing hard on my knees. Mrs. Mehra's children (my neighbours) had spilled some oil on the stairs while playing. I hurt my knee quite badly and was finding it difficult to get up up for sometime but holding the bars of the stairs, I could finally stand up on my feet. I was lucky enough to get away with only a few scratches on the hand and a somewhat sore knee, I could have easily got a serious head injury. Then again as I literally ran to the parking lot to take out my activa scooter, but my luck ran poor there too. I found that its back tyre was punctured. I was already late for office, I didn't have the time to take it to a garage for repairs. I thought of taking a taxi instead to go to my office.

As my luck would have it, first I couldn't find an auto or a taxi anywhere along the road for the first few minutes and then when I finally saw one auto approaching me and made it to stop, I found someone else quickly arriving to claim his ride in that auto. The driver too agreed to take him to his destination but wasn't ready to go my way. It soon left and I couldn't find another auto or a taxi anytime soon. I got more flustered. It seemed like my luck was hell bent on showering misery over me that day. The sun too was beating down mercilessly, the heat was unbearable, it was not only hot but humid too.

Finally I saw a taxi coming my way. As soon as it stopped, I quickly got into the car and asked the driver to drive me to my office's location, without giving him a chance to say a "no". Fortunately he agreed to take me there. However the interior of the car was anything but clean, the seats were filthy, ripped and worn. There was also a foul smell coming from the bottom. But I could hardly complain now, I was already running late for my office. So I sat quietly and only prayed anxiously for the ride to reach its destination as quick as it could. My problems though were far from being over. If all my woes since morning weren't enough, our taxi now got stuck in a traffic jam at the intersection! My office was still some distance away, so I couldn't have walked all the way from there. I had no other option but to wait for the traffic to clear. To put up with the foul smell coming from the taxi's floor, I started looking out of the window.

Just then I noticed a thing that not only melted my heart but also made me to forget all about the bad things that I had been experiencing since morning. Suddenly my face lit up with hope and optimism. I saw a young man stop his bike at the road junction and go down to the other side of the road, because he saw a blind man struggling to cross the busy street. None of the vehicles had bothered until then to even slow down their vehicles to let the blind man cross the road nor had any pedestrian who were standing alongside the blind man come forward to help him. But this young man held the blind man's hands and helped him get across the road safely. I saw the blind man patting the boy's shoulder and thanking him for his help, before he walked away slowly.

By then the traffic light had turned green at my end too and my taxi had started to move again. But the incident touched my heart deeply and left an indelible mark. It proved that there are still some kind-hearted souls around. The world isn't entirely devoid of humanity.

God truly works in mysterious ways! He provides you with moments to turn around a bad day and alter your mood. Just when I thought that the world has got filled up with hatred and rage and people have become too selfish to bother about anyone else, He makes me come across a little incident that gives me hope that not all goodness has gone away.

Humanity still exists

*** The post is about how I got over the pain of a rejection and started afresh. I would like to thank Housing.com for having given me the opportunity to write about it. More can be found about them here ***

Most of us would have faced rejection in life at some point in time. It's not easy coping with the pain. Especially if someone gets rejected in love. There is nothing quite like the heartache of an unrequited love. When someone gives her heart and soul to a person whom she loves and then gets rejected, gets to know that her feelings aren't reciprocated, it completely breaks her down. She feels shattered. It's very hard to recover from that pain. You don't get over it just like that, it's not easy to wipe off those memories, it takes some time but that too doesn't come easy or quickly. Every minute seems like a year, the pain is intense, the memories would be stinging your heart, so it feels unbearable.

I was only 19 when I fell deeply in love with one of my classmates. We had become good friends since the start of our college, right from the day of our orientation program. We were in the same batch and the same course. He was a very quiet and a simple-natured person, I would often find him at the library and he came across as a studious boy, so I had kind of started to like him. But I had no idea that he too had nurtured same feelings for me too. So I was completely bowled over when one day he came to me and proposed. I had never fallen in love before, I was very young too, so it was a strange feeling but I loved it. Before I knew, I was completely and madly in love with him. I had already started to dream about my future with him. Our relationship continued even after we completed our graduation and started working, though we weren't able to meet as often as we used to do earlier. Both of us were quite serious about our careers too. Still we would meet whenever we could and spent time together. I was quite clear about getting married to him and even discussed about it with my parents too. He too told me that he had spoken to his parents. Our parents met with each other and a date was fixed for the marriage. But before that, we both got engaged to each other. So we were all set to culminate our relationship in marriage. I had already dreamt too far ahead, about experiencing the various challenges of life with him.

But my world came crashing down when suddenly one day he called me to inform that he was calling off the marriage, that he no more felt the same way for me as he previously used to do, that he had fallen in love with a girl in his office. That came as such a sharp blow that I couldn't even react. I was heart-broken. After being in love for six years, he was suddenly telling me that he didn't love me anymore and had moved on to another girl while I was still stuck with him because I loved him madly. I felt so cheated, I had never imagined that he would break my heart this way. I felt very dejected and depressed.

Eventually he got married to that girl a few months later while I had gone into a depression. I had left my job, I had stopped picking up calls from my friends, I just couldn't think about anything else. I had not only locked myself up in my room but had also in a way cut myself off from the outer world. I had lost my sleep completely and had even started taking sleeping pills but they too didn't come of much use after a period. My parents took me to various doctors who could only give me anti-depressant tablets but my condition remained still the same. I was just not able to pick myself up and start afresh. I was finding it very difficult to fill the emptiness in my heart, it was too much for me.

Then one day I suddenly woke up from my pills-induced sleep and found both maa and baba sitting beside me. They were both crying. That was when I realised how I had been giving them pain, that for one relationship, I had been neglecting them. I had built up walls around me. I wasn't seeing how much my family loved me and how bad they were feeling themselves on seeing in that miserable condition. I realised that life can't stop just because of one rejection. It should go on. While my ex-boyfriend had moved on with his life, I was still stuck with the failed relationship, thinking about it all the time. It struck me really hard.

It wasn't so simple to shake off the disappointment, the pain or the anger just like that but I had to start from somewhere and that's what I did. Instead of taking those anti-depressant tablets, I started to keep myself busy as as not to let negative thoughts come to my mind again. I started helping my father in his music shop. I even joined as a volunteer at an old-age home. Thus I remained busy most of the time. I let time to heal up the pain, but more than that, I had got back my desire to start life afresh. No pain is big enough to keep you down if you remain positive and are ready to start over again. It took me some time but finally I got over my heartache. Now when I look back at the time, I feel happy that it happened, because it not only made me a mature person but also it gave me a chance to cope with the pain of rejection. Now I feel fully prepared and ready to deal with any rejection that comes my way in the future.

Appreciate the Love of your Loved Ones

*** The post is dedicated to my father's memory. I would also like to thank Housing.com for having given me the opportunity to write about togetherness. More can be found about them here ***

So often we tend to neglect or fail to give enough time to our loved ones because we are busy running after materialistic things. Things are different when we are kids, when we are very young, our world revolves around our parents, our nearest family and our friends. But that tends to slowly change as we start growing up. Our priorities change and even without us knowing, we tend to slowly move away from our family and friends. In the bargain however, we loose out on treasuring the love and affection that only our loved ones can give us and not our material wealth! Because of this hunger of ours to acquire wealth, success in career, position and fame in the society, we slowly end up becoming like robots with no emotions. We remain stressed out and often vent out our frustrations on our loved ones.

A similar thing happened with me too a few years back. After my mother's death, I asked my father to come over to my place and start living with me. I couldn't have left him all alone back there. Moreover he was getting older. But he had always been a very simple person and preferred an uncomplicated and quiet life. He wasn't used to the fast, and noisy city life. So he wasn't too fond of Delhi but then he loved me too much to ever complain about it. On the other hand, I had somehow become so absorbed with my work and my own life that I couldn't even realise when I had moved so farther away from him even though we lived under the same roof. I used to work late in the office and so by the time, I came back home, he would have gone to sleep. In the mornings, I used to be in such a hurry  to leave for my office that we hardly ever got to talk with each other, not even for a few minutes on the breakfast table. My father was watching silently but never complained to me. He would keep sitting on the arm chair looking at my mother's portrait on the wall, as if he was silently conversing with her. I had neevr noticed this before.

Then on the fateful morning, which happened to be a holiday, I had decided to sleep late into the afternoon, after all the hard work in the office the previous night. Unfortunately Shilpi, my maid, hadn't come that morning. Since I was still sleeping, so Baba decided to make his tea himself. He made tea for me too and also made suji halwa (he still remembered how much I love suji halwa) and a few chapattis. Let me tell you that my father is a tremendous cook and he often used to help my mother in the kitchen. But ever since her death, he had lessened his visits to the kitchen. I remember even when I used to be a small kid, how he used to sometimes treat me with his bread omelette and milk shake on Sundays. That day too, he had prepared the breakfast for me with all his love and came into my room to wake me up. But I was so stressed out because of my work-related problems from the previous night, that I literally shouted at him for waking me up early. "Who told you to go to the kitchen and prepare all these? Why can't you sit quietly in your room and let others do their job? This is Shilpi's work and she will do this, not you", I shouted at him.

He felt pained but didn't say anything to me, instead he just left the breakfast on the bed table and quietly left the room. A few minutes later, I realised what a grave mistake I had committed. He was the same person who had always patiently heard me and used to answer each and every silly question that I put to him when I was young. He had always treated me like a princess whereas I had hurt him immensely even though he was only being affectionate towards me. I felt guilty about my conduct. Immediately I ran to his room and hugged him tightly and apologised for my behaviour. Well, I was always his darling daughter and so he forgave me instantly. I freshened up and then we had the breakfast that he had prepared for me. The suji halwa tasted so good, and why wouldn't it have? He had put in all his love into it! We had our tea together and we talked about my childhood days and reminisced of our old times, we remembered my mother too.

Since it was a holiday and i didn't have to go to the office, so I decided to cook lunch for us. I made his favourite meal that day - rajma chawal, raita and kheer. I wanted to make him feel special. After having lunch together, we also sat down to watch one of our favourite movies - Jaane Bhi Do Yaron - that was being shown on a particular TV channel. I would have watched this movie probably a hundred times but watching it with Baba was something different. Because it was him who had shown me this movie for the first time when I was a kid. We also went out for a walk in the park in the evening and while coming back, we decided to have dinner at a restaurant. He used to love Mughlai food and so we went to old Delhi and had a nice dinner. This was some three years ago. My father passed away last year. Now when I look back to the days that i spent with him, I wish I had given more time than I did. But once a person is gone forever, however much we may want to, we don't get a chance to correct our mistakes. Though I didn't get to spend as much time with him as that particular day but after that fateful day, I made sure that I gave him enough of my time when I was at home and made him smile. That days shall remain as one of my most memorable days ever.

We often tend to forget that it's only for our loved ones that we are working so hard. It is of no use if we aren't able to give them enough time. It's not our wealth and luxuries that would make them happy, rather it's our love and time that they wish to have more. One doesn't need grand gestures to make someone feel special. Make your loves ones your first priority and give them time. value your relationships, devote time to improving them, rather than running after worldly possessions.