Jeeveshu Unplugged

Diwali

2011-10-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

I see my mum lighting up candles and in that light I miss her face, which I can only imagine that could glow like a sun in a moonlit night. I wish it was another pair of hands lighting up our life. Another heartbeat that I could hear next to me whispering in my ear that she loves me, I would not even wait for Diwali to come, as each day we may not light candles but can certainly make each other’s face glow with all the love we had, giving all that we have. I see families out in neighborhood dressed up as festivities start and here I am leaving mum alone at home leaving for work, I know she in her heart misses me, misses me being happy. It’s funny that harder you smile the more broken you seem from inside. As this Diwali goes by I just wish that in this lifetime I get to spend one with her and make her see what the world would be and how beautiful it is when she is around. That she is just not another woman but a heartbeat for us, a heartbeat we need. Wishing with all that I have and nothing more, to just come and light up our life.

She

2011-10-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

She is the one I loved, loved with all my heart and may be heart is not all I had to give but much more may be my soul. I died when she left; a big part of me died a very painful death. Every day I am reminded of misery and pain I went through and then in the cloud of darkness the silver lining comes in with her smiling face and happy moments we shared. Even though the moments were an ounce of a life but felt like a lifetime, a lifetime of feeling loved and wanted, being desired by someone. The beauty of love is so undefined that it carries many a lifetimes and so many of us to figure out that was it us or was it love that moved their position in our life. The road ahead is long and so many crossroads that I miss a hand walking with me, I still keep my fingers open of where her fingers use to close on mine. I walk ahead and lead the shadow that trails thinking that it’s her walking with me. I hope it never rains so I don't lose my sunshine! Walk by me my love.

Pay it forward

2011-06-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

I had lots of pain, anger and anguish in me when I started to write this. I was angry at her and for what she did and had put me through. Wounds so deep that my blood use to boil just thinking of what I went through, my skin use to crawl just knowing someone is still doing it to me. Then I came across a kid who taught me the most important lesson in life “Pay it forward”. It’s not complicated its simple; all you need to do is do one good deed, it does not matter if it is random or a planned one. Just go out and do it, help someone who is not expecting any help and don’t expect it to return, just ask the person you did it for to pay it forward to someone else. So if everyone does it, then the world would be a better place and believe me when I say this that it is going to come around to you, as your life is goes in a circle, all you need to do is have faith and pay it forward and the circle of life will come back to you.

I forgive the love that caused me the pain, I forgive people who ridiculed me, I forgive people who had hurt my family and I forgive everyone who has ever been a reason for sadness for me. Irrespective of what I went through I forgive you. I am being selfish here as I know I am not perfect by a mile and I will make mistakes and hurt people and do things that will cause them pain and anger but if I can’t forgive people who do that to me then who am I to expect the same in return.

We all carry scars in life, some are hidden and some are too big to hide. Scars are only given people who are close to our hearts and little did we know that they were carrying a knife with them only to cut you deep. Who has not done it, who has not made a mistake, who are we not to forgive, who are we to judge, we are nobody. Just go ahead and put your hand someone else’s scars and ask them to do the same not to you but for someone else. Believe me the joy of life is in giving.

As the circle completes, you will turn back and see the hand of someone, someone you would know and someone you would love on your scar just healing it. It may also happen that it takes too long or it might never come back to you does that mean you will not pay it forward, no you should because as life goes on you will either be a giver or a receiver, if you are giver of good deeds then you are blessed and if you are receiver, only pray that you are a receiver of that hand that heals your soul.

I forgive you now go and pay it forward do a good deed for someone else. Heal your scars.

The Empty Side

2011-06-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

I miss her. I miss her sleeping on my left arm and saying goodnight to her. I miss looking into her eyes as we dived into deep sleep. I never felt uncomfortable or irritated because of this; I just took it as my left side was for her to sleep on it. I miss her arm around me, the one who takes the blanket off and then once I started to shiver puts it back on me. I take turns at night now only to realize that I have no one to put the blanket on me and my left arm is of no use.

I use to sing to her while we drove, there are just too many songs that were so called “Our Songs” I use to act funny or at least try to make faces while use to mime those songs to her, she use to just crack up laughing. I miss that, now all I have loneliness as I gaze into it and its funny how that hollowness starts to gaze back at you. I use to take her hand and change gears while I drove; it was just too romantic though we were seated separately but were together at the same time. I miss her on the left seat of my car. Now there are times when I just stop and look on the left hand side of my car and just wish that she was seated there.

I feel hollow inside now because both sides are empty sides.

Hope Floats

2011-06-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

As we grow old in life, we end up losing things. We only realize it once they are taken away from us. Last one year has been a deciding phase in my life in too many perspectives. I have loved and lost and lost heavily. I shattered my soul in ways that I can’t even begin to start picking up the pieces. I have hurt people in ways that I can only pray and hope that they have the heart to forgive me sometime in their lifetime. I have brought in tears in eyes of the people who loved me the most and I just chased them away. It hurts to even think that something of this sort has taken place, we all witness such things happening to others and never realize that one day it could be us.

The question we ask all the time is “why me” & “what did I do wrong”. We all know what went wrong it just too hard to point a finger at oneself. I am just dying inside to see such a state of events but then who is to be blamed but me; I wish things were different, I wish I had someone I could call mine, someone who holds me close to her and tells me how madly she loves me, someone who kisses me and tells me how important I am in her life, someone who holds my hand and tells me I am her world. I had someone like that, someone so close to my heart that I could not see beyond her, now when she is gone I can’t see anything. Where would you go and who would you turn to if the only person who stops you from crying makes you cry?

It’s strange to find hope at such unexpected avenues that you are astounded by the response you get. I have had people who have just held on to me and not let me fall down. They offered me a shoulder to cry on and I needed that. I was told that I am amazing, humble, generous, funny and full of life, I was given example of my mom who is true image of being strong and fight for survival and never ever give up. They have called me, messaged me, emailed me and met me to make sure that their friend or brother was not alone. I still find myself alone because once they are gone, they start living their life and I am still gazing at horizon wondering that does it ever meet?

I hope for sunshine, I hope for rain, I hope for smile, I hope for love and I hope to live once again.

I am clinging on to hope and hope is a good thing and remember good thing never dies. Hope floats!

A Different Life.

2011-06-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

I remember her as vividly as I remember my life that goes by everyday. Each day I wonder what would she be doing and would she be still thinking about me? Would she miss me as I miss her, would she have tears like I do everyday? Would she miss living her life with me as I do with her? Would she be wanting to be with me as I do? Would she still try to find me in each song that comes on or a movie being played on TV? Would she spend sometime alone and go through things that we gave each other and try to hold on to them so that at least if not we be together physically but somewhere still be connected?

Life goes on at a pace where there is no time for anyone else but it seems my life stopped right there when her hand left my soul. I am still standing at the crossroads of my life where she left me, waiting for her to come back someday, before I go to sleep for one last time.

I wonder if she is still loving me the way I do? Somehow I know she does.

Intrigue and Love

2010-03-03T01:23:00.000-08:00

“I’m not frightened. I’m not frightened of anything.

The more I suffer, the more I love.

Danger will only increase my love.

It will sharpen it, forgive its vice. I will be the only angel you need.

You will leave life even more beautiful than you entered it.

Heaven will take you back and look at you and say: Only one thing can make a soul complete and that thing is love.”

Loneliness

2010-02-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Time: 10:31pm, Date: February 3, 2010, Place: Alone in my Room

After the fear of death I guess this is the biggest fear any one of us dreads to face. Have we ever wondered that what is it about being lonely that we fear or is it just about what we have heard and seen happening to others when they were lonely? I am a very extrovert kind of a guy, the one who can crack a conversation with anyone, comfortable with any kind of audience, heartbeat of a party and so on. I know a lot of people and I guess that is where it ends, I just know them. The question I need to ask myself is do they know me? I guess not as much as I would want them to know about me, why? We all draw boundaries, to contain anyone who we wish should know just as much, some people cross them because we want them to, some come and then they leave or go back to what they were, some stay.

I am lonely and I accept it, now the question is why? I chose to be. Question is how? By choosing people who I wish to enter in my life and somehow they can’t or are not present as much as I would have wanted them to. I can easily choose to have loads of people around me but I would still be lonely, that is the worst thing to feel, alone in a crowd. I have felt it too many a times; it’s hard to make it out though by just looking at me.

I am in love with people who I can’t have or at least I wish that they were here with me all the time but they are not. I felt lonely when I was crying and had no shoulder to hold onto, when I smiled and no one to share it with. It’s so strange to be known by so many people and yet be so lonely. There are times when I want to cry out loud and say I am lonely and I need you, please come to me and take me in your arms.

I miss my brother, we are not close in traditional terms but if there is someone in the whole wide world I would close my eyes on he is one of them. I miss his presence, I miss his smile, I miss his stupid arguments, I miss his comments, I miss his voice, I miss his guidance, I miss his support and I miss living with him. I might not be able to say “I love you” to him ever but the bond we share does not require only this, it has much more to it. I guess in a much unspoken way we are connected somehow and someway. I just pray that it remains the same.

I miss that special someone who I love so deeply and passionately, I miss talking to her, I miss kissing her, I miss looking at her, I miss touching her, I miss holding her hand, I miss walking together, I miss telling her how beautiful she is. I just breathe now, breathing with her was living life and I guess I miss living my life. Oh how I wish that I have everyone that I crave for to just come together and be with me.

I just pray that in my loneliness I either end up finding something to live for or great enough to die for.

Invictus

2010-01-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstances
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of change
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the year
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Job

2009-12-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Time: 11:21pm, Date: December 7, 2009, Place: Alone in my Room, watching TV.

It is actually very difficult to describe feelings associated to word “Job”. I have been working for over 14 years now. I have done jobs that people say are “Odd” but for me they were a source of any and all learning that I carry with me as I grow old and have had success till now. Over the years I have sold stuff going door to door, worked at a gas station, sold movie tickets, worked as an usher, waited on tables, taken calls as an agent, handled team, motivated people, moved up in life.

It is a funny thing about being employed and that too at a power position. How people’s perspective change when you are affecting them directly or indirectly and how it changes when it stops. I have been there for too long and have seen it from very close quarters, I don’t know whether to call it fortunate or unfortunate but I have seen it too many times that I clearly know how it feels and what it takes to be there.

It’s hard to differentiate when people portray pink picture in front of you if that is because of you or the seat you’re sitting on. Usually it’s the seat but not to take away the credit that during such times and places you might tumble across a genuine person who is there to stay in your life with or without you having that job. I have been lucky to have a couple of friends who have I over the years have only cherished and thanked god for bringing them into my life.

It takes toll on you when you are made to believe that you are nothing, when no one calls you, when you are out of meetings, when no one has time for you to go for a smoke or a drink. When people don’t return calls, when “busy” is the word you get to hear time and again. It is disheartening to see such state of affairs but that where the term “Reality Bites” fits like a glove.

It’s very hard to keep yourself sane when things don’t go right especially financially, you need people around you who need to do only one thing and one thing only and that is to tell you that they love you and all will be well. My dilemma is for how long one can hear that, I guess that there is no choice but to keep listening to it till things fall into place. It’s easy to lose your sanity, to think straight in such scenarios, to not be able to find an answer to the questions “Why me?”

Well have said goodbye many times to such adulation, respect, praise, so called friends and a great boss, which in a nutshell means “Nothing”, here is waiting for another ride to move up and rise from the ground, have done it in the past and will keep doing it till I can stand.

Dad

2009-12-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

Time: 10:48pm, Date: December 6, 2009, Place: Alone in my Room, watching TV.

Its 27 years today and not a year has gone by when I have not thought about him or wished that he had not gone so far. I may not recall too many memories with my Dad but I clearly remember the day he decided to leave all of us. I am not too sure why do I remember that but the irony is that I do. In last 27 years I have seen my mother who stood by us through all thick and thin, she is truly a great example of unconditional love and what it takes for any human being, to get that godly status, at least for some of us.

I faintly recall memories with my father of going to the market and eating lots of chocolate, I was a stubborn kid and my father with a golden heart was spoiling me. I remember my mother telling him again and again to stop treating me like a prince, who would turn out to be a spoilt brat but to teach me the rights and wrongs of life. Who would have known that it will be her who would be doing the latter?

I guess I never had a closure for my relationship with my father, I have missed him at various times, some good and some bad, there are times when I thought how would it be to have a strong person standing next to you, holding you by your shoulder and telling you, go ahead my son, go for your dream and if you fall I am here to catch you in my arms.

I came back home pretty late this morning and woke up early too, I sat with my mother and told her that today its 27th Anniversary since Dad passed away, she looked at me and said oh yes that is exactly how old my brother Vicky is this year. He was mere 6 months old when our father passed away, depriving him of all opportunities to feel what it is have a father. I never donned my father’s role; I was never good enough to do that. I guess even if I wanted to I would not have been able to do it.

Amma got up with teary eyes, I was amazed to see the pain she had in her eyes, even after so long and said I wish for both my sons to have a very happy, peaceful and fulfilling life.

With all these years gone by, I feel sorry for myself and feel miserable for not loving and caring about Amma as my father would have done if he were to be alive. I guess I never thanked her enough to not only be a mother but a father to us too. I sincerely pray to god that he enables me to make her heart smile.

Today remembering you Dad, I hope you watch over us from high in the sky, I still look up at times and pick the brightest star to see if it is you. You have been missed in so many ways by so many people that I wish if life had to give me a second chance I would not let you go. May your soul be blessed!

Life has been never been the same since you have gone.

Till I meet you in my next birth, praying to god that you are my father one more time, I just wanted to tell you that I love you.

Amma

2009-06-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

Time: 11:16pm, Date: June 9, 2009, Place: Next to my Mom, watching TV.

Mother: A woman who raises a child, a woman who adopts a child, a woman who gives birth is what you see if you Google it but for me it is the woman who I am looking at right now, she is sleeping. I see wrinkles on her face, a tired body lying down, mouth open and tongue coming out; she is making funny noises while she sleeps. Her hair is salt and pepper untidy but tidy in my eyes, she is at peace as I sit next to her and she has everyone who she loves dearly by her side.

Amma as I call her with love and with various versions of the same name I have called her all my life, this suits her the best no in fact she makes all the names look good. So this is how it all started, today while I was sitting with Amma, she said while we were watching TV that how are some Mothers so proud of the fact that their kids make them proud by doing something great in their life, I looked at her face, she was not even looking at me and while she was busy looking at the proud mother on the Idiot box, I felt small, really small. I am 32 and can’t recall 32 proud moments that I have given to my mother. I have been busy earning money, making a career, falling in love, falling out of love, fighting my addiction to quit smoking, lose weight, fight amongst friends and colleagues, in a nutshell doing everything but with my own selfish motive. How can I turn out to be like that?

The earliest of the memories I can recall is the day my Father died, she was in the kitchen cooking food, my favorite meal Peas Pulao and there we get the phone call which changed 3 lives forever. My Father had suffered a severe stroke and was struggling for his life, I don’t remember her crying or creating a scene, next I remember is lighting my father’s pyre and that was it. At the age of 5, I was the MAN of the house and my mother had suddenly changed from a pretty young wife of 31 to the 31 year old woman who has to struggle all her life to raise 2 kids, who how would they turn out to be only god knew. I am sure that she must have had her doubts but then don’t we all get them time and again, all I know that she shrugged them off and started on the path where only she was there and were two of her kids who were following her like puppies not to be lost in this wild world.

I remember her getting up very early in the morning, cooking breakfast and prepare lunch at the same time for us, waking us up, getting us ready for the school, telling us how to be a good human being than a rich one, going to office, facing all the ridicule thrown at her, working her way all throughout the day, worrying about us, coming in the evening, cleaning all the mess that we use to create, asking us about how our day went and not discussing how her day was, doing household chores, cooking dinner for us and while she helped us do our homework and then watching us go to sleep. I actually never saw her sleep, I am sure she went to sleep with tears in her eyes, looking at us and praying to God that no matter what happens to her, we both should grow up to be fine human beings with all the things at our disposal which we never got a chance to lay our eyes on due to lack of possibilities.

This is not the life Asha Devi Ahluwalia had dreamt off, she must have had some really good dreams while she fell in love with my Father. She was young, very well educated and very pretty, she had the man of her dreams and she had the perfect life one could ask for. One could only envy her life, who could have thought that she would then start envying it herself one day.