Saturday, December 09, 2006
FIFTEEN
removed from familiar time and space, no one and nothing can physically reach us here: we have one single commitment; a simplicity, a one-ness unparalleled in modern life. that we are, milling amongst a bunch of strangers only helps in this sense of focus. unencumbered units, we sit, holding newspaper veils, curtained from the rest of the world. we wait, for the aero plane, the boarding, the safety announcements, the eye candy hostess, the departure, breakfast and our eventual destination: a string of seamless anticipation in transit accompanied with a sense of sadness, of loneliness: no one belongs or lays any claim, here we are the only person who can fulfill our need for acceptance… and so we await escape, remaining blanked and untouched.
Monday, December 04, 2006
FOURTEEN
Expression: somewhere all relationships boil down to that. In my brief stay around here, watching people and how associations develop and disintegrate that seems to be the principle pivot, which makes or breaks things. That is what brings people, feelings and beliefs alive. Irrespective of lack of geographical proximity or 24x7 togetherness, the ability to communicate what you feel about yourself, about the other person and about the relationship you share is where it all is at.
The more successful relationships (and we are not talking only in the ambit of man and woman here) I see around me the more I realize that the channels of honest and meaningful expression seem to be the fire around which the richness of companionship is fostered.
Verbal or otherwise, in the absence of honest and consistent expression, distance and misunderstandings are inevitable. Men, more often than not, use the excuse of once stating their feelings and assuming the rest will be taken care of. The excuse is ‘Hey! Do I have to keep telling you? You know how I feel!!!’ Of course, these are the same men who have thereafter been victims of not understanding what their partners want, what they want in turn and how come the other guy his partner hangs out with knows so much about her and he so little.
Let us accept we are in a world, which is short of supply on people who express how they feel. Though tagged a feminine quality (by men, who else) it is one of the fundamental precepts of a strong and healthy relationship. Think about it, the child (who is said to be the purest form of the being) expresses himself at every point: the channels of communication are always on open-mode. To my mind, what men don’t understand (and that is why women are far better at handling relationships) is that if you don’t express how you feel, your feelings don’t matter beyond a point.
But weren’t there successful marriages before us when expression was more a social construct or around transactions. How did those last? The answer perhaps lies in the opening sentence of this paragraph, in the words ‘before us’. When the world has moved on, the nature of the male and the female has moved on, when the roles are blurring when the grey is the predominant color, when temptation waits in every text message, how will the mores of the past see us through?
Expression: somewhere all relationships boil down to that. In my brief stay around here, watching people and how associations develop and disintegrate that seems to be the principle pivot, which makes or breaks things. That is what brings people, feelings and beliefs alive. Irrespective of lack of geographical proximity or 24x7 togetherness, the ability to communicate what you feel about yourself, about the other person and about the relationship you share is where it all is at.
The more successful relationships (and we are not talking only in the ambit of man and woman here) I see around me the more I realize that the channels of honest and meaningful expression seem to be the fire around which the richness of companionship is fostered.
Verbal or otherwise, in the absence of honest and consistent expression, distance and misunderstandings are inevitable. Men, more often than not, use the excuse of once stating their feelings and assuming the rest will be taken care of. The excuse is ‘Hey! Do I have to keep telling you? You know how I feel!!!’ Of course, these are the same men who have thereafter been victims of not understanding what their partners want, what they want in turn and how come the other guy his partner hangs out with knows so much about her and he so little.
Let us accept we are in a world, which is short of supply on people who express how they feel. Though tagged a feminine quality (by men, who else) it is one of the fundamental precepts of a strong and healthy relationship. Think about it, the child (who is said to be the purest form of the being) expresses himself at every point: the channels of communication are always on open-mode. To my mind, what men don’t understand (and that is why women are far better at handling relationships) is that if you don’t express how you feel, your feelings don’t matter beyond a point.
But weren’t there successful marriages before us when expression was more a social construct or around transactions. How did those last? The answer perhaps lies in the opening sentence of this paragraph, in the words ‘before us’. When the world has moved on, the nature of the male and the female has moved on, when the roles are blurring when the grey is the predominant color, when temptation waits in every text message, how will the mores of the past see us through?
THIRTEEN
Clicking
through your pictures
Zooming
in and out
Talking
to me and myself
Recollecting
rides to and fro
Enveloping
you in warmth
Coming
home to see you waiting
Riding
the cab when you said yes
Drinking
our first drink together
Hearing
airplanes full of your stories
Competing
to spill less sandwich
Receiving
secret calls from foreign lands
Watching
you laze in your orange tee
Tripping
on you and I
Clicking
through your pictures
Zooming
in and out
Talking
to me and myself
Recollecting
rides to and fro
Enveloping
you in warmth
Coming
home to see you waiting
Riding
the cab when you said yes
Drinking
our first drink together
Hearing
airplanes full of your stories
Competing
to spill less sandwich
Receiving
secret calls from foreign lands
Watching
you laze in your orange tee
Tripping
on you and I
