Too Often to Notice

There’s some effort it demands – self-love is never easy. There she goes, loving herself to perfection. There’s so much to look after, after all. The hair, the skin, the teeth, the nails… the list never ends. If done continually, self-love seeps into one’s lifestyle to become a habit and there you go, practicing this as a mundane task to the extent that you hate any aberrations from what you termed as ‘perfect’.

She was a goddess to an onlooker, a masterpiece, someone who was just flawless the way she was. It was hard to take eyes off her, her looks and her style was too ideal to be true. For herself, she had forgotten how amazing she looked. She seldom realized what impact she had on the people she worked with. The goddess that she was not just made hundreds turn heads for a second glance, but also made several skip their heartbeats when she giggled. The fragrance she wore added magnetism to her aura, almost like giving her mysterious powers. THIS man who she lived with had to be the luckiest for getting her for life. He couldn’t have complimented her enough, for his appreciation would have been the real fuel to her smile.

Snap out of this to another land of male charmers. This boy here could well be touted as the dream man for any girl. It seemed as if God had taken a few days off work to sculpt his physique. He, honoring the blessing he had received, took special care in building his body, presenting it the way it was meant to be. He redefined masculinity, giving a fresh benchmark to millions of women to look up to in a male. He didn’t know how women around her sighed imagining him around them, all alone. He, indeed, put in great efforts to keep his best traits up. He was someone, who would be a pleasure to look at, let alone the thought of having him over you. THIS woman who has his to keep should have been forever grateful to him for have chosen her over others. She would have sung praises, cherished him forever and pampered him to happiness.

Alas, we see these diamonds we live with every day, but we see them too often to notice their charm, their sparkle. What if we get to know that our souls are like those tiny plants, vying for love and appreciation? What if we saw that the auras shone brighter when they were caressed and treasured? What if every day was not treated as ‘ordinary’? Woah!

Hold that special person close, praise them for what more or little they do, pamper them with what they love the most, notice their quirks and manners and give an ear to what they say. You never know, this might just change your equation with love forever!  

You would never say.

They say that your happiness knows no bounds when your home is not a place, but a person. How true; one could almost feel her adrenaline gushing at a mere sight of him. Their love story was no ordinary, for he defined love for her and he hardly was friends with words.

 She didn’t know if love ever existed in words; for her, it was a feeling, euphoria, a lot of warmth and him. Yeah, pretty much. No festivals, occasions or conventional times of the year would bring enough happiness to her more than the tip that he was standing outside her office to pick her up. In the distance of close to fifteen minutes back home, their conversations would range from the happenings in the day passed without each other to what they plan to do once they'd be home. A lot of times, a song one would have been vying to make the other listen would fill the silence and thus would commence the sweet nothings.

She knew his existence revolved around her and how she was oxygen for him. Each day was a battle for him and she knew how strong a support system she was. You don’t calculate love, you don’t measure the conditions, you don’t draw the perfect map and you surely don’t write down the T&C's – when you love someone, you BELIEVE – in dreams, aspirations and life together.

She knew how a perfect team they both were and how he would always need her for every big or small decision he would ever take. She knew their love was a melody, a song they both loved humming to and a dawn turned to dusk while talking.

Their love was the wind beneath their wings and she loved how God made them dance at the twilight, in the sheer ecstasy of each other's company. She knew, for a fact, that they were inseparable and, also, that he would never say. 

Their love story might appear a little vague to the world outside, but on the inside, it was clear and complete and that’s what made them stand out – they were not ordinary, but complementary.  

Waiting for Him

The windows had been set open. After all, he could be here any moment. Other days might not have had that effect on her, but it was just a different day. Maybe it had set differently or progressed so, she was able to feel each moment passing by today. The ticking of clock was giving wings to the butterflies in her stomach. She was actually looking forward to her husband coming back from work and her holding him in her embrace.

While the rest of the days were a part of the routine, these days were especially earmarked as festivals. Rains cast that spell on you; they make you happy from inside and this happiness just spreads on to everyone around you. She prepared the snacks they had almost forgotten they used to have after their marriage. Things were definitely different that time. The desire to know each other and get close was such that it superseded every other desire the mind ever conceived. She set the snacks on the table placed in their courtyard which was covered in a way that they could still feel the raindrops falling on the ground. Even the winds seemed to be dancing along with the rain drops, splashing some on them while twisting and twirling along. Meera was reserving this pleasure to be had with her husband, Karan. Till that time, she was making sure that Karan forgets all his worries the moment he enters the house she was so endearingly decorating today.

Flowers in the brass vase, incense sticks lit in the small temple hung on the wall in the study room, fresh, washed curtains and the cleaned linen on the bed, all were creating a beautiful aura in the home, the home she lovingly called her masterpiece. For the first time in months, she was feeling like dressing up in a saree, that red one which was his favorite. She couldn’t help but wear the anklet her mother-in-law had gifted her after her marriage. She remembered how Karan used to love its tinkling and how it was often the start of tickling nothings between them. Kohl, bindi and gajra, she wondered how she had almost forgotten these friends of her she adored seeing adorned on her mother.

The sky was covered by dark, grey clouds and raindrops were hugging the ground, almost as if answering its prayers. The cool breeze was bringing back the memories of everyone from their childhood. Even Meera had a lot of memories of playing with her brother in the rain when she was young and, then, of waiting for someone special in life to cling on to during such weathers when she was an adolescent. She wondered why she never told this to Karan, may be because they never sat down to talk anymore. 

Today would be a different day, she thought. She had been living her dream ever since she got her marriage arranged, a caring husband, a house to call her own, the liberty to take decisions and a loving family, she could have never asked for more. She wondered why she never expressed her gratitude enough. She thanked rains for bringing a sense of happiness and a desire for her to stop for a moment and feel herself, her body, her mind and her senses. Passing a flying kiss to the sky, she set her one foot in the rain while sitting on the recliner in the courtyard. She thought she would sit down to talk, spend some time listening to him and caress him out of his worries. She had so much of love to share with him and the rain had been a perfect buoyant force to bring all of it out. She set the teapot on the table along with their favorite mugs and played the music they both loved listening to; after all, every couple had those special love songs which they called their own, the ones they played to cheer the other up and the ones which were timeless. Ah! She felt the freshness of the old times and the bloom of a newlywed bride. 

Knocking at the door and noticing it open, Karan entered!

The Best in Me

Love Story

One year, countless memories!

This day, last year, we took the plunge to start living together, giving shape to our dreams. Reaching here, to this decision, settling in India and choosing to tread on the path which could prove to be extremely tough wasn’t taken in a day; it took us months and to me, it all seemed like an era.

I always tell my girlfriends it never seems to me that I live with my husband; the time we are spending now seems a mere extension to our dating time, when, of course, we were not staying together. It’s been a fun one year which has taught many life lessons I could possibly write a book about but, for now, let us do with a blog.

1. No expectations = life full of surprises. Pretty much. I never expected him to cook or wake up early and make me tea or take extra care of me when I am not well. He did, and I pretended to take all that like a breeze!
2. Friendship > marriage. Well, this dates back to the time from where it all started – it all started with friendship. So, we decided to retain the flavor and not adulterate with expectations marriage might hold from a couple.
3. You + Me = We. A massive change. Yes, it is a couple taking decisions now in almost all the spheres. For the first time in my life, I have been putting my view in taking big decisions and enjoying the discussions happening before the consensus is settled.
4. Marriage ≠ proving to each other. Accepting the other person the way he is, his way of living and thinking, habits, culture from where he comes all clubs into a package home-delivered to you, all wrapped in a gift paper. Living together would give way to whole lot of revelations which should just be taken as a milestone in knowing in each other and crossed happily.
5. Love = being comfortable. That pretty much is the crux. One year is a long enough time to understand each other rather clearly and be able to breathe superfine in each other’s company. When there’s nothing to prove to the other person, you learn to live just the way you are.
6. Marriage ≠ growing up: Yes! Be as crazy as you have always been and never let go of the things which actually bring pleasure to you. Though you have decided to grow old together but this sense of satisfaction of being with the right person might actually reverse age for you! Do not ever think of succumbing to societal pressures just because you’re growing old. I’ve been thinking of taking life one second at a time and, trust me, it makes me feel real light.
7. Best times = sitting and talking: Just this. I trust in you and you trust in me. That should end the story well.
8. Feelings ≠ words. When you live together with your husband and the feeling of being married starts sinking in, you realize that love is much more than words could ever define. It engulfs your relation, keeping it warm and giving you enough space for growth. You know no words could ever tell him how you feel and this feeling is so contagious that each other's mere presence would leave no space for words. You realize loving each other becomes as a habit as breathing.
9. Clashes ≠ serious fuckups: It’s perfect to fight like pigs and come together later in the day because you need someone to talk to. It would always be your decision what you would want to prioritize at any given point – person, relation, matter or your ego. After all, any stupid decision taken in haste would not mean end of all the problems, but starting of a new set of problems.
10. Success = being happy: This is my final word to sum up my one year this day. Love is being happy because you’ve been blessed to live the life of your dreams, to see things falling into place, to feel god’s blessings in all spheres of life and because you have so much to thank god for and even more to look forward to!

To the sheer happiness that spreads when we're together!

10 Days without You

I, ashamedly, admit that I have zero experience in running a home, like a perfect house manager. Yes, I am married, yet, I'm, circumstantially, in an internship phase. My husband lived in a country abroad for good six months and he’s back now and how! The update is that my honeymoon phase is going to be over soon and I am to start living with him, running a house – like a boss.

My parents set the arena for a nice practice game for me, when they left for a lovely, but long (ten days!) trip together. My KRA was to babysit two babies in their late twenties – one my brother and the other has to be my husband. Shit got deeper when my brother joined a new office, where he was supposed to report at 8:30 in the morning, right when I used to yawn wide in my dreams. Trouble started when all eyeballs starkly pointed at me, like a digital compass very sure where to set itself, for making everyone comfortable all through the void.

I was always scared of being unable of holding up everyone’s expectations. I could never imagine myself getting up at 6 in the morning, having slept at 2 in the night, to cook for the breakfasts and the lunches. I have never in my life bothered to make things look shinier just so somebody was turning up at home – you can say I have been spoilt to the brim, but that’s how I have been brought up – and I am sure many other babied dolls would swear of the same situation as mine.

Superseding my own expectations of myself, I sailed through and I would say, I was fairly good! Thanks to Google, cooking never seemed a daunting task, and the thought that my brother would have to leave home starving compelled me to get up and cook. Fortunately, the two overgrown babies, too, behaved themselves and showered all their concerns and love. I can say that is what kept the motivation flowing right through me. I was, in all possible manners, trying to emulate my mom, recalling everything she did, right from storing the leftovers to cleaning the washrooms to effectively balancing her work life.

Never did I realize that though she never sat me down to teach me things, she silently made me pick up all her habits. Her being around, carrying herself just being her, was an inspiration enough to steal a glance and check what’s keeping her busy. The zeal of starting a task, even if cooking, was infectious enough to grab everyone’s attention at home.

Things were right there on the subconscious level, just they were dug up and pulled out now. I am glad I managed to run the show and keep everyone entertained for the ten days they weren’t here – though inside, I was striking dates off waiting for their return. Life all this while has, undoubtedly, moved at snail pace, yet the feeling of having accomplished an elephantine task lifts me two feet above the ground. When they were back, I seemed to, in my mind, hand things over to her as a mother-in-law does to her newly wed daughter-in-law; I wished to thank her for teaching me the ways of life, but something inside pulled me back – I am sure she would have said her aura needed to be thanked.

Honeymoon Diaries Part 3: Vishakhapatnam: No Other Place I Would Rather Be

I'm sure God had personally set the plan for us – perfect place, perfect hotel, perfect set of people and perfect weather – no other place would have treated us better; it had to be his hometown!

The first day, around 11 in the morning, we reached Vishakhapatnam, the city of destiny as they call it. We reached the hotel where we had planned to stay – Novotel – one decision I am really proud of. 

What a treat it was – the rooms, the service, the view, the quality of the food they served – everything was out of this world! Driving you a bit offbeat, I would like to mention that there are times in life when we can’t thank few people enough – the people we call friends. His one such friend, Kalyan, took so good care of us during our short stay that saying ‘thank you’ would only nullify his efforts. He sent us a car, with a friendly driver, to pick us up and take us wherever we wanted to go. Kalyan also did a superb job by giving us a bullet to ride on wherever we wished to. I cannot really write my husband's feelings while riding the bullet, his favorite machine, by the sea, with me riding as pillion - it was mesmerizing, like a dream come true! Things got even better when my parents landed the same evening.

We went for dinner to one of his relative’s home and the moments we spent there were overwhelming. We had a great time eating great food and talking our hearts out. We could not, for a moment, feel that both our families were from two different states and cultures.

The next morning, we headed for the famous Simhachalam Temple. His one more friend had his father as the head priest of the temple. Therefore, we could get VIP entry and special pooja done for all our family members and the bliss we all experienced there can't be summed up in words. Once we were back at the hotel, we decided to head to the beach and give it a polar-bear hug – needless to say, we all had an amazing time there J

The same evening, we had our wedding reception planned. The kind of reception I received, being a new entrant to his family, was so heart-warming that I was floating in clouds. I tried reciprocating all the love I received from the elders and the kids, and so did my family. Thanking my new family for this love would never be enough. Having reached the hotel, we (my family and my husband) sat by the pool and tried to re-live the day’s happenings. The sea breeze helped us freshen up and live each moment we were breathing there.

The next morning, my brother had an early flight to catch, therefore we bade him adieu and set off for Rushikonda beach. Thereafter, we saw our parents off, who too had to head back home. We reached our hotel and decided to head to the hotel gym. The amazing time working out together, and then while taking steam bath energized every cell in our bodies and we were all set for a new phase of adventures.

The two days we stayed back together was our private time together, so to say J We spent the best time meeting relatives and friends, seeking blessings at Sampath Vinayagar Temple, shopping jewelry, riding bike in the entire city, even when it was raining, eating at the most fabulous places in Vizag – Daspalla's Dimple Rooftop Restaurant, Dolphin Hotel, Cabana and Novotel and the climax: riding a speed boat in the sea at Rushikonda beach. Our honeymoon just couldn’t have been better than this. All this while, the weather in Vizag was similar to heaven. Only when we were heading back that it was hot there – probably, the place wasn’t happy seeing us leaving. One more incident which brings smiles to our faces is the meeting with one of his friend's mom on our way back to the airport. This friend, Chandrashekhar’s mom not only blessed us, the newly wedded couple, and gave us goodies to take along back home, but also offered “Bournvita” to us, the kids! Never ever in my life had anyone offered me Bournvita when I visited them. This cute incident made me hug the lady even tighter – people have THAT kind of influence on you J

With this, my extended honeymoon came to an end and I must say that this was THE best time of my life. Not only this trip got us emotionally closer to each other, but also introduced a new level of intimacy which wasn’t there when we were dating. We also got together as a family, a unit – my family lovingly accepted my husband as a member and so did he. We all had an amazing time exploring a new place and new relations.

I can say God listens to all the prayers and how! With our each breath ticking the life away, our gratitude to them increases manifolds. 

Ms. to Mrs.: A dream transition!

So now, the world identifies me as somebody’s wife; the feeling? It’s inexplicable. I am sure every couple, who in their dating period feels seriously for each other, dreams of this transition but seldom they are able to reach this stage. I am one of the few chosen ones who could successfully hit the goal, without facing any opposition at all.

My say on the feeling of this transition from being boyfriend-girlfriend to husband-wife is IT IS NEVER THE SAME. Dating is way different from living a whole, life-ful of relationship. Living with each other 24x7 not only gives way to serious revelations about the other person, but also opens up another chapter of love – sustenance.

The only privilege ‘pre-marriage-dating’ blesses you with is that you don’t listen to the other person as a just-brought-home cat, who doesn’t know how to act feeling a new air around. You freely meow, purr or even pounce, as if it was your own house and your own people J

The first hit I got was when I woke up, startled, seeing him sleeping on the same bed as mine! J Yes - when we got to sleep for some 3 odd hours after I reached my “new” home at 5 AM. My first-hand experience on dating, love and marriage is that friendship transcends all hardships you face as a couple and brings a lot of peace and calmness back home. So, you know, great food, romance, organized life, adjustments all take a back seat. 

I am sure preaching does not help when it comes to relationships and the only thing you would want to experience is a free-fall, being yourself, feeling an eternal calmness of having achieved a big goal in life – togetherness. So, I will not preach a word on how you should be steering a relationship to the right path (I don’t know it myself, to be true J). Let us all, newlyweds, make our honeymoon period last for a lifespan and hope that this transition from bachelorhood to marriage takes off as smoothly as a Lufthansa airplane racing on the runway to kiss the clouds. 
Here’s wishing all the best to all the couples travelling on the same boat. Bon Voyage!

Long distance, Skype and the things which irk me the most

I have to thank technology for its whole, truckload of contribution in my life. I would not have been able to survive a long-distance relationship if it wasn’t there. I know thousands of couples continue to kindle their relationships, no matter how far their spouses would be, through whatever combustible environment technology provides them.

Back in time, when it was decided that my spouse would be moving out of the nation in search of greener pastures, I was deeply disappointed for I knew my weekends would lose their meaning – and they did. I started to look sad and ugly on weekends, too (I work from home on the five weekdays and the weekends were the only time when I, all dolled up, got to step out of the four walls I constantly stared at the rest of the days). Anyway, time swooshed by and I couldn’t even get to know when it was five months already.

For all these days, we constantly were in touch – through phone (thanks to the free international minutes VoIP blesses you with) and Skype. Yes, this latter application has impeccably bridged the distance and talking is almost like catching up over coffee. A slight difference still exists – on our coffee dates, I looked the best of me and he, well he “tried” to look good J. Now, our dates are a mirror of how we would “actually” look at home.

It’s been quite some time since we have been putting this application to serious use and, now, I have started to get irked by it. Why? Well, at times, while talking, he would pan the phone camera across his flat and I would suddenly feel like flying to his place. And you smell romance here?! Read on.

I get deeply bothered by the mess around there and feel itched to CLEAN HIS ROOM (and fly back J)! Right from the kitchen to the hall and further to the bedroom, I don’t see a place a person could possible sit on or at. Ohkay, I might be getting way too serious about the normal behavior of ‘boys’ as you say, but what do you have to say about the concept of ‘cleaning’. Cleaning home, according to him, means packing his bag – just the bag!

Meanwhile; somewhere on the planet.

Precisely, an easy out to most of the problems out there!

As I calm down, I understand there are ways people live by and it’s not necessary yours would perfectly overlap with your partner’s and I totally believe contrasts like these give way to a rainbow of colors you would not have ever noticed had life been spick-and-span like a monochrome light.

To put off the heat of the argument, he has a strategy which seems to work, almost always. I am rather compelled to stop ranting when I am told I sound more like a girl. Fact check: I am a girl. Super-twist: I never want to sound like one. Reason: No, that’s not an insult. Further explanation: Stop pissing me off, will you? I am a perfect mix of the best of the girl and the boy traits (with the former dominating a bit. A BIT.) No matter what, messy room is not acceptable. No, I don't want to see it all over again. Wait! I would not be able to see you otherwise. I love Skype. Rant Over.

Backatcha!

  

Behaving My Age

It’s that time of the lifetime when you finally have to change skins to become a responsible human being while your inner soul still pretends to be a kindergarten brat; that time when speaking shit comes as easy as a storm in a desert and listening patiently seems a task next to impossible; the age when the conscience about one’s own stupidity does not show up and everything that you say sound pearls of wisdom to yourself; when doing household tasks seem the most crucial KRA of your maid and you helping her in the same implies deduction in her salary; when the fact that you earn and work in an MNC overpowers everything else left to do in the world, including cooking and when you look in the mirror and feel tad too proud of the way you look and wonder who on Earth would be able to match that nerve and fail to find one name, even close – YES, this age, this time, this phase – PRECISELY this is when THEY decide to get you married!

It’s like taming a mad ape – accepting that you are getting married and knowing that you get to be the female in this setup – the traditional one who behaves the way others program her to. The one advice, order, request or commandment that you hear from all the directions, while you happily behave the way you have been doing since ages, is “behave your age”. “Well, I’ve been all the same!” is all I can say in return. Suddenly, everything you do right from dressing to walking, from speaking to shutting up, from eating to picking your utensils up from the table, from getting up in the morning to pretty much, existing starts to appear faulty to those people who loved every bit of whatever nonsense you did before THIS time.

Now, I try to behave my age – in fact the one well ahead of it. It will, obviously, take me some time to shed the skin I have been comfortably living in since ages. But all that I have got to do is try to monitor how I behave, timing my smile, gauging the number of times I nod, looking at all random places while keeping mum in a room where the topic being discussed seems as stupid as the arguments being thrown to defend each other by the people involved, checking the usage of words like shit, crap, fuck, bitch, booh and trying to fit in a circle of “all grownups”.

Or, I have got an easier way out! I believe in order to get a valid visa to be able to step into the shoes of an “espoused”, all that you need to do is screw this gyaan up and team with your spouse up for a bigger mess. You never know, he might already be choking himself while acting a “grownup”. Behaving your “self” over your age is a nice idea for a cool, relaxed life. I bet behaving my age would never come easy to me, especially when I know I am good when I am “a lady” but I am much more a fun when I am “me”.

Anecdotes from a Crazy Love Life

This is the first time when I am narrating an instance from the very personal corner of my life to my readers; I am sure you would enjoy reading this as much as I have reveled in writing it and, most of all, in living it. This is surely one of those few moments, which keep cracking you up even after days or months when they happened. So, here goes a short, funny reminiscence which makes me laugh, cry and wonder all at the same time, thinking how my fiancé never leaves any stone unturned to add spice to our lives.

This happened a week back while I was happily chatting with my husband-to-be, sitting several miles away from me. I had been envying a lot of cute, just-married, couples on social platforms leaving mushy, gooey, cute messages for each other either in the form of posts or comments. Call my groom-to-be shy or hesitant, he doesn’t find it fit to spit his love out on social media (as if it’s venom) where there are hundreds of eyeballs trying to find some fault in it, if not any than grammatical. I hate his this habit as I am really active on social media and I don’t feel mollycoddled through his words on my posts or pics and I particularly hate it because we are engaged and there’s immense societal pressure (I feel, eh) on me to prove it to the world that my man is good with words and how!

So, I uploaded a pic, which looked somewhere close to this, but I surely looked way better; I always do, even in my out-of-the-bed selfies!

I knew my bae is never going to comment on the pic, as the best expression of his love is his “liking” the pic, and I fail to make him understand that out of 100 likes I got on the pic, his special love-filled ‘like’ will get crushed and tramped down (Sigh!).

But this time, I collared him (virtually, of course) and forcibly asked him to comment on my pic. Poor he, he thought this was probably the toughest time of his life, tougher than taking board exams. He immediately started ‘Google’ing severely romantic shayaris ever written and after half an hour, came out with this (on a pic that has me smiling and pouting, all at the same time):

Koi Aankho-Aankho Se Baat Kar Leta Hai.. Koi Aankho-Aankho Mein Mulakaat Kar Leta Hai…Bada Mushqil Hota Hai Jawaab Dena, Jab Koi Khaamosh Rehkar bhi Sawaal Kar Leta Hai…

Sawaal?! Bearing a question mark on my face, I complained about his bad judgment and how he could not think of something as simple as ‘looking pretty’! Why, at all, he needed to Google compliments?

He started digging further into the world of internet and this, for a moment, made me feel guilty wondering if I am asking too much of him. Never mind, this feeling was as temporary as my thought bubble which was again pricked by my beau who had found something he thought worthy:

This pair of small eyes, Help in saying big things, Love not expressed from lips, Is confessed by a wink. At any place in the world, Her eyes keep searching for me, Sparkle of her eyes is moved to her lips, After she finds me. Each feeling of her heart, Is said by eyes of hers Whenever I leave her, Droplets of water stroll down in form of tears. Can always find, Unconditional love for me in her eyes, Confirming the thought to be true, That the pair never says lies. I have a feeling, She has a straight heart to eye connection, As she expresses everything, by her eyes, That's needs to be mentioned. When I can't find her eyes around me, Don't know what happens to my day, Smile from my visage, Remains at bay. In the night when I lie on a gathered hay, Under the starry layer of the endless worlds, I trace your eyes in the maze of stars, Like a pattern laid out by two beautiful pearls. This pair of small eyes, Help in saying big things, Love not expressed from lips, Is confessed by a wink.

Well, I did not want a lengthy, 200-word essay on my pic, which already had some 10 odd comments by now, so I frowned a bit and asked him to quit whatever he was doing. To this, he so innocently said “but I’d honestly fallen for your eyes. I think they add spark to your beauty”. Well, this worked! I was flattered and thus, he got another chance to look for some nice comment to post on my pic. Here’s what he fetched:

Girl I'm not a shy guy, but you got me feeling like I might die. Those beautiful eyes, got me melted inside.

I thought of killing myself – not because this was too cheesy, but because I wasn’t looking for anything artificial: anything he could write that could make me feel I belong to him. I guess he picked up from my cue of not replying to this message that I disliked that, too. So, here’s my bae’s another attempt at pleasing me:

I miss the beautiful eyes that I can sail through forever. I miss the smile that send me to heaven

By now, I was banging my head on the wall being frustrated to the top-most notch. I, my last try, asked him to compliment me in Italian (I remembered he had championed this language way back in time). At this point, I could guess he was baffled, too, for how he was just not able to make me happy and how he's been ignorant of this new avatar of me, a girl who’s crying for his love, spelt out in sugar-coated words, written right on her post.

I would surely have fractured my limbs laughing so hard after what happened next had he not gotten me out of that by finally saying bye. This is what he said, “Here is my username and password, can you please comment whatever you feel is appropriate yourself?” Imagine me, pretending to be him, leaving romantic comments on my own picture! All my anger and frustration was bubbled in a matter of microseconds and I was actually feeling silly for have asked him to do something he just isn't good at: expressing himself under the sun! 

I shut my laptop down and retired to bed, just when I received a notification on my mobile saying someone has left a comment on my pic. It was him and this is what he wrote: Ti voglio molto bene! (Meaning: I love you so much!). I bet my day couldn’t have ended in a better manner J   

The Aura of the Airport

This is one first-hand experience, ‘another first’ this year, of seeing someone off at the airport. I have always been on the other side of the story, happily bidding adieu, boarding the flights while looking forward to my journeys. During all these farewell cheers, I could never understand why my parents used to shed tears, for a dimwit like me had never felt that heart-wrenching sentiment of biding au revoir and returning home with a feeling of having left something at the airport.

This time it was my brother who decided to take his career to a new level, stepping out of his comfort zone, punching hard the challenge, right on its nose. And there, a new experience set its first foot in my life. The aura there, it just gets into your nerves, slowly reaching each limb, weakening them from within, making them anorexic that you just go weak and cannot help but cry.

I stood there, noticing the scenario around and here, I've tried jotting down the snippets of the things I can, now, only sum up to call it all a ‘feeling’. I saw parents hugging their kids tight, with tears in their eyes, though waving their hands, still unable to say goodbye; fathers clutching mothers’ hands and holding them while they walked out of the parking spaces; spouses leaving and the partners who got to stay not able to bid adieu with a smile (I also saw a couple or two cuddling, which, apparently, made my heart grow fonder and brought along an 'aww' monent); a few grandmothers who were checking from a never-ending checklist the things their kids, who were leaving, should do when they land and the things they should never do when they land; friends exchanging hugs and high-fives — uncounted prayers, well-wishes, hugs, kisses, talks - sad and happy - all enclosed in oodles of LOVE. You don’t feel the world is going to come to an end, you want to forget about wars, you don’t want to remember all those who have been hostile to you, not helped, never cared… you only want to remember this moment, the feeling, the thoughts, what you should say, what you shouldn't, the prayers and the best wishes. The only thing that makes one cry is the aura of the airport, which makes LOVE flow along!

I remember this dialog, which actually made me skip a beat when I'd heard it for the first time, from the movie, Love Actually:

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”

I concede that I shed a few tears when I was seeing my brother off, but I cried my guts out during my travel back home – this experience possibly drew me closer to him, way more closer than I’d ever thought I’d ever be. I think the distance does that to you, the AURA does that to you!