is like chemotherapy for two souls suffering from a highly malignant life threatening disease. It rips you off your pride, self esteem, your financial security, sometimes even your friends and family, but it gives back your life.
Ironically, it doesn’t seem like there is a life anymore…for cutting off emotional ties is far more painful. distressful and fearful than any surgery.
But then, finding life where there is none is the biggest challenge, isnt it??
…for lamenting recently about some general, some personal grievances that either I have or someone else has come across in life through some of my comments. Well, my opinions are just the way I look at things depending upon how my thoughts have been shaped/moulded and they may or may not be right or the only way to look at things.
I would be happy to learn something new and nice thru what anyone else has experienced and has to offer. The reason for me to share my thoughts here is only one : “to offer a second opinion to anyone in a similar situation, to help them find an answer…for who knows my judgement, right or wrong may end up throwing some light on someone else’s path!!”
“Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love…”
–Rabindranath in “Stray Birds”
“…hoyto kichhooii nahin paabo,
tobuo tomay aami dur hote bhalobeshe jaabo…” — Bangla Song sung by Sandhya Mukherjee, music by Shyamol Mitra.
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Love seeks nothing, yet flows relentlessly, generously, illimitably, unconditionally….without a question, without a doubt it waits for acceptance!
All her life she expected and hoped that he would change. In fact it was this hope that kept her going all along.
He was seldom around and when he was she always felt distanced from him. As if he was there with her but only in body. In his mind, in his heart…he was nowhere near. The love he showed seemed not real somehow, as if it were meant for someone else…it felt as if their union happened just by an accident. Although when he wasn’t around, her heart yearned for him yet when he was, his indifferent behaviour compelled her to stay miles away from him.
Everytime she tried to discuss her problems with him, he shrugged his shoulders and casually said,” ….this is how I am, have always been and will always be, live if you can or leave!” . He was everything she had. He was her entire world and even a thought of separation from him terrified her, so each time she apologized profusely and kept mum ….in fear of losing him.
Ever since he first talked about leaving him, this terrifying fear became her only companion, her only soulmate for a long time to come. Fear fed her ego, her pride, her self esteem and she felt a strange secured feeling in its clutches. Everytime she tried to get closer to his thoughts, and tried to make him understand her needs; her efforts alongwith her hopes came dashing to the ground….and she felt that gnawing grip of fear again!
As days turned into months, months into years, her hopes of him ever changing dwindled. Although they had been companions for years now, had walked through thick and thin of life together, yet the path ahead appeared darker, stranger , more and more terrifying to her.
How long could she continue to keep mum? How long could her fear last?
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The morning was unusually bright, the air seemed much fresher, cooler, gentler and strangely it appeared to her as if she was noticing everything around with a new set of eyes…
…slowly it dawned upon her that the giant like fear she had let grow inside of her that made loneliness, failure , social admonition appear bigger, more meaningful than actually losing him was GONE.
The realisation that ‘he’ never belonged to her in the first place struck her like lightening the night before when her last attempt to revive her marriage, failed mercilessly. The dark clouds of insecurity looming over her head cleared out instantly as she realised there was actually nothing to lose after all.
In her constant fear of losing him… she had actually lost her one and only true friend, someone who knew her best, someone who would be there even if there was no one else….herself!
It was high time she sought her best friend out…
As the news flashed on my screen at work, ‘Michael Jackson, 50 dies in LA’ …. I stared back at the screen!! I had read earlier today he had suffered a cardiac arrest and was hospitalized but had not imagined he wouldn’t make it through.
Despite all kinds of rumors about him, I had always believed he was truly talented…and I always liked him. After all he was the biggest ever star alongwith Madonna when I was growing up, in fact I grew up listening to his songs!!
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This reminds me of something I read just a few days back…
However big an empire you build, however big you grow in name and fame, however talented you may be…just like everything else in life that doesn’t stay the same, this too shall pass…for nothing really belongs to us except for the soul, the spirit we are born with.
Death takes away everything else, your victories, your failures, your successes, your losses…everything!! So why cling onto unnecessary worries? Just know in your heart…this too shall pass!!
I am sure every North Indian or those who have lived in North India most of their lives, love idli/dosa/vada with the mouth watering sambhar and the fresh delicious coconut chutney. Since we moved to Hongkong and then the States, I have always missed my favorite south indian food so much that whenever I get to go to India, that is all I eat…whenever I eat out!! Yes much to the irritation of anybody giving me company…b’z they get tired seeing me eat the same thing over and over again!! 🙂
I learnt making sambhar from a Hawkins pressure cooker recipe book, it was an elaborate recipe and I made the best sambhar ( well…not really but I thought so!!) the first time I tried it. I have never used a readymade sambhar masala and I guess that makes the difference.
Dosas I haven’t really mastered yet…however and whenever I make them, they always taste good even if they dont look perfect and since the sambhar tastes so good that it compensates for everything else, it leaves me and others satisfied.
I had thought of coming back from work early today to take pictures in the daylight but something came up last minute and I reached home late!!
Sambhar Recipe:
for the Daal: 1 cup toor daal tamarind pulp (pls use your own estimate…) curry leaves – 1 sprig mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp dried red chillies for the Sambhar masala: 1/2 cup grated coconut methi seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, curry leaves, dried red chiilies – 1 tsp each hing – a pinch
Vada Batter: Soak 1 cup udad daal for a couple of hours. Grind it to a fine thick consistency. Add salt, 1 tsp ginger/green chillies paste, 1 tsp whole jeera, 1.5 tsp roasted jeera powder, 1 tsp rice flour (use optionally for crispness). Mix well. Shape into flat balls and shallow fry in a pan. Serve with hot sambhar and coconut chutney!
Method:
Sambhar Masala : In a frying pan, pour 1tbsp of vegetable oil and temper with hing. Add all the dry masalas, add the coconut and curry leaves and fry taking care to not burn the coconut. Make a paste of the masala in a blender with a little water.
Sambhar: Boil the daal in 2 cups water with turmeric, tamarind and salt. Temper oil in a separate pan with mustard seeds, curry leaves and red chillies and pour into the daal. Add the sambhar masala paste, and let it simmer until the daal and the masala is mixed very well.
Serve with dosas, idlis, vadas or if I were you I would just have a bowl of sambhar anytime I am hungry!! 🙂
The Dosa recipe I copied from here…it was instant and very tasty! It can be had even without the sambhar…
The coconut chutney was copied from here.
Sometimes I feel helpless but I try not to be hopeless for…
…our dreams and wishes are like stars, millions of them twinkling several light years away but still we see them shining on us every night reminding us to be hopeful, bright and cheery…they may be distant, seemingly out of reach, nonetheless they are real!
How does distance, time or space matter when a star, millions of miles away smiles down upon me every night, hugs me tight and however dark and long may be the night… it lends me its light, makes my world unbelievably bright.“Change how you look at things and things you look at will change” —
(read this outside the church on my way to work, its amazing how I always get the message that I need at the moment )
in my favorite deep red color was lying half finished, amongst few other projects also half done in my crafts basket. As I sat down to look through it today I felt a little motivated towards getting these projects finished one by one. This is as far I have come with the two balls of red I had. There is no way I can finish it without a visit to the store again…may be a picture on my blog will keep alive the motivation to complete it.
je nodi’r thikana tomar buker shagor,
shey kebol ii boye jaaye, snigdho, sposhto, nirontor!
dukkho, koshto, niraasha ke kore joy…
klanto tobu tomar bhalobashay poripurno ei hridoy
jaani jete hobe onek duur, poth e aachhe bedonaa bhorpur
tobu mone hoy tumi bujhii aachho boshe, aamar ii opekhha kore…
taai boye chole shara tii kkhon, jaane naa porajoy, obujh ei ekti mon.
Let the light shine from within you... 