Why a sorry matters only when you mean it.

I believe that two phrases should never be uttered to another person without truly and wholly meaning it. These phrases are also two of the hardest to say, even. Both are declarations; one is a declaration of love, and the other is a declaration of apology. And interestingly, one of my favorite quotes about saying sorry comes from one of my favorite romance novels, Love Story, by Erich Segal. “Love means never having to say you're sorry.”  But I really wonder if not saying sorry, when you should, would help in a healthy and happy relationship?

‘Sorry’, I feel, has an ambiguous quality of being both an ugly and beautiful word, not necessarily at the same time. Sorry is ugliest when it’s thrown around half-heartedly. When you, conveniently, throw in a sorry so that you can put an end to the uncomfortable conversation, which you know will not end in your favor, you render the word ugly. That half-heartedly uttered word then floats like a feather, falling from a height and landing on still waters causing ripples enough to make you believe of an impact but too tiny for the water to even feel it. But a well-meant apology is like a long awaited rain that seeps into the forgotten layers of land, quenching its thirst from deep within. While a well-meant apology is therapeutic and cathartic to both sides, a half-hearted and ill-meant apology is like the letter ‘e’ in ‘apologize’, that nobody cares about because you don’t pronounce it! But like they say, "if you don't mind, it doesn't matter." If how someones feels is beyond your scope maybe they don't matter to you and you can reserve your 'sorrys' only for those who matter.

That brings us back to our previous discussion- if not saying sorry is really what love is about, or is it ok to not apologize to the one you love when you have wronged them. Like they all say, there might not be a one-rule-fit-all in here. This could be a ‘to each his own’ sort of a scenario were some may prefer apologizing when they know they’ve wronged while some wouldn’t deem an apology necessary. But, when you wrong someone you love it’s always better to let them know that you aren’t taking them for granted, and that, whether you verbally spell it out or not, you are sorry. But, most important of all, I think it’s always ‘healthier’ to say sorry only when you mean it.

The Art of Letting-Go

Love is very tricky. It brings with it a certain quality of pain along with all the sweetness. It’s as if the hurt and agony come free with the sweet bliss! So, even when it’s time to let the love go it’s not going to be easy. Time teases you with memories while the words of promises sound like hollow drums beating in your soul. You will also end up feeling a host of negative emotions like anger, bitterness and sorrow. But today, someone, who is going through a kind of a failure in romance, was explaining to me why it isn’t easy to let go.

He said that when you hold on to something/someone like your dear life you let it go only under two conditions. One, if you are convinced that whatever you had going on between you two has ended for good. But sadly, that realization doesn’t come that easily! You almost always want to cling on to the hope that the winds might bend, that bridges might mend or that love might happen or happen again. There is just no end to the hope. So, now, moving on to the second condition hoping that maybe it works.

Condition number two is if you find something/someone better. I like the sound of it: to find someone better! But how often do you find someone better and are ready to leave your past behind you to make your future come alive? Honestly don’t we get hung up on our past to the extent that it makes us blind to our present and future? How often have you let the right person walk past simply because you couldn’t push past your baggage from the past? Turns out letting go isn’t that easy after all!

So, then how do you let go and be happy? My answer is: you just go ahead and be impulsively happy with yourself. One of my previous bosses once told something which I’ll always remember. He asked us, radio jockey trainees, if we were the kind of person we would like to be seated next to at a dinner party. “If you aren’t you better be!” he said. Be the best company you could have. Do everything that grows you as a person.  Weed out things, attitudes and people if need be, but be the best possible happy version of yourself. You don’t wait for any realization to kick in and definitely don’t wait for the right one to waltz in. You decide to walk into your life and happiness and claim it!

All we need is positivity

I remember reading somewhere that life is more black and white than we’d like to believe. We have this intrinsic quality of complicating things; we’d like to think that taking a conscious decision to stay peaceful and content has been made impossible. But in fact, like my father used to say, “Mood is in your mind!” it’s up to you to cut out the drama from your life. But we don’t learn to uncomplicated; it’s simply not in our DNA!

More often than not, we crave validation. We want people, anyone from random strangers to acquaintances, to think well of us. We want their approval and at time even envy. But actually, sometimes life is as simple as breathe in, and breathe out. You breathe in goodness, and breathe out negativity. It’s that simple! You surround yourself with people who love, honour and care for you; you ctl+alt+delete people who demean you, judge you or simply make you tense in their presence. Today as I was dealing with a similar situation someone pointed out to me that all I had to do was delete the situation. I had forgotten that it was that simple! I realized that if I keep wasting my energy on people and situations that don’t add any positivity to my being I had the choice to either remove them from my life or remove me from the situation, or both. So, this is to remind anyone who is stuck in such a situation or stuck with sticky people to get the hell out of there, because, trust me, sometimes there is no shame in quitting!  Remember: CLT+ALT+DELETE or Exit!

Coffee, Cappuccino or Java: elixir to a soul in sorrow

Today, in the evening, as I made my 2^nd cup of filter coffee of the day, I realized how important a

Location: Bombay Blue, Mumbai

role this one cup of coffee plays in my life. As I poured in the dark decoction into the mug of milk, allowing it to fold into the whiteness, darkening the milk with its erotic bitterness I realized that I’ve often associated coffee with nostalgia and romance.

I pride on the fact that everyone who’s had a taste of my coffee has only had good things to say about it. I like to believe that whenever they’ve lifted their lips off the bitter-sweet concoction of coffee I made, it’s made them fall in love with me, just a little bit more. I believed that my mother made the best coffee in the world; ie, till my grandmother, whom I called Ammammai, came along. Ammammai , who otherwise had trouble walking or moving about swiftly, seemed almost possessed when she brought herself to make me my evening coffee. The way her arms swung with the steel glass and the dawaran as she tossed the coffee hither-thither still plays like magic in my head. She taught me this tiny little magic trick to make the ‘best filter-coffee in the world’, which I like to believe is her legacy to me. And the little, selfish girl in me refuses to part with that little secret which I shall keep to myself like my dear life. So, every beautifully made bitter-sweet glass of filter coffee served in a steel glass and dawaran reminds me of that beautiful woman, my ammammai, who taught, me to make ‘the world’s best filter-coffee.’

Mother dearest; at home.

But coffee in general is about romance, isn’t it? It’s a comforter, a pacifier and a conversation starter. I remember, one of my friends fondly quipped that he’d marry me just so he could have my coffee first thing in the morning to start his day. Those words did not just make my day, week or month, sometimes, even today, I think of his words as I make myself a coffee after a long tiring day. But, thank god, he found himself a coffee-machine and got married to a fine woman, the love of his life! But, there is nearly nothing as good as coffee when you are in pain, physically and emotionally.  I shall never get tired or have enough of my mother’s coffee and the smile she serves with it. And, I shall never forget the sweet-bitterness of the instant coffee I had with my ex the very last time we met. It tasted exactly like the coffee he once fondly made me. That’s when I realized, that come what may, somethings in life remain beautifully and faithfully unchanged. That whenever I add coffee to milk in my desired proportions

Smiley face courtesy: ChaiCofi, Kochi

it’s going to make me happy and content. And those are the things I need to hold on to. As a hot steaming cup pf coffee fills you with warmth, pushing away all the trials of the day, you need to remind yourself of all the joys in life that are just a breath away and that you only have to be happy from within to have all the good things come to you. So, whenever in doubt, hot or cold, drown them in a cup of coffee!

The Plague that is Atelophobia

People live their lives fearing a lot of things. When you are a kid you fear darkness, spiders, lizards, school bullies and what not. And then when you grow up you may evolve in your fears and start fearing heights, people of the opposite gender, solitude and then your garden variety darkness, insects, et al. I was never scared of darkness; I’ve always feared insects; spiders, lizards, cockroaches and everything that has wings, and crawls. But, disappointment is the single biggest fear we have in our lifetimes, I fear. Fear of disappointing our parents, teachers, friends, boy/girlfriend and then eventually our spouse and finally our children is what riddles us throughout our lives. But, the most dangerous kind of fear of disappointment is disappointing you!

 I’ve heard people rant about expecting less from people to avoid disappointment. All that’s cool! Though I have a problem with people who claim to be in a relationship without expecting to be loved and cherished. I could never be in a relationship where I don’t expect the other person to give me some time and attention. If I don’t get it it’s not a relationship. But, how do you not have a certain level of expectation from you! And if that doesn’t fall through how can you not be disappointed of you?  And trust me when I say this, that this sort of disappointment is the worst! How do you fall through and escape this sort of a disappointment? How do you figure out what when wrong? Something you did failed to work! That’s not a pretty feeling, is it? How do you overcome that disappointment?

Try harder. And keep trying till you succeed. Yes, it sounds cliched, but that’s how it is! There’s no substitute for hard work, my mother used to say. My father used to believe in innovative thinking and finding creative solutions to your problems. So, that’s that! What do you do when you are disappointed of you? You break it down to yourself. What is your biggest disappointment with you? Tackle that first. Give yourself a reasonable practical time to work and put in your 100%.  

So, that’s my shred of positivity for the day. Tackling my biggest disappointment piece by piece.

For love of the written word

As a part of my plan today I opened the Microsoft Word to pour out my heart onto it and I realize that the written word we trust in.

I remember buying my first autograph book, back when let alone selfies, but, even cameras weren’t readily available as today. It was one of those routine trips to the book-store that both my papa and I used to enjoy; I largely get my love for books from him. I’d wander around the book store taking in the smell of freshly inked paper and feeling the vibrant stories vaporize from the pages and blend into my skin. To this day every book-store I walk into still reminds me of the Paico in Kozhikode. That’s where he told me that I was a big girl now and that I could read the “grown-up” books; it was my initiation into the unabridged versions of Sherlock Homes and Jane Eyre when I was barely 8. And, that is also where I fell in love with stationary. Quite often than not, I saw my father hoard on stationary that he mostly only collected and never used. So,when I began hoarding stationary who better to understand than my papa. He’s the man who “spoilt me” with my first Parker pen, when at 9 or 10 I had just begun using a pen at school. So that’s probably were I get my love for the written word too.

When I came across an autograph book my father told me that people of his generation carried autograph books to get it signed by celebrities whenever they came across one. I was instantaneously intrigued and wanted one. I got a thick, leather-bound, maroon coloured rectangular book with pastel coloured pages in it. In my excitement, I couldn’t wait till I find a “celebrity” to start filling in the pages. So I got the book ‘inaugurated’ immediately by my hero, the one man who meant everything to me-my papa. I don’t remember what he wrote in it and I have hence lost the book; which I will forever regret. Inspite of a number pf photographs I have with my papa, his written word will always remain special to me. His tiny, well-rounded letters, neatly stacked on a line, expressing whatever it is meant to, in brevity, is a vision I can never forget (He loved to take notes in uppercase, but in tiny font size).

Writing a word, a phrase or a sentence exclusively for someone, to me, is intimacy because I’m accountable for those words and I need to feel strongly to write those words. It’s a frozen moment of expressions that even pictures rarely express. I feel that when you write something for someone you leave a portion of your soul to them; for them to savour. And, because I’m old-school like that, when in love, I’ve always insisted for a love-letter, which my recent ex blatantly refused on grounds that he didn’t have a way with words. I guess it comes as no wonder that he’s an ex.  But, no matter what you write and for whom you write I believe what a reader relishes from your written word says more about them than about the writer. So, when I write to you I’m letting you set a tent somewhere in the density of my soul and it’s for you to decide what fruit you want to pick from the site. And, if you care enough to light my soul, look no further and write to me, because the written word etches its weight into the soul with a power like no other.

Rain, rain, come again.

Kochi city awaiting a rain.

Do you love rain? Oh, I do. There is absolutely nothing as good as rain for an instant pick me up. The moment I see the dark clouds crawling across the pale blue sky I reach out into the kitchen and fix myself a coffee. And then, if I have a balcony (which I have at this point) I’ll just stand there and be poetic. Pathetically poetic, but nevertheless, as long as the poetry is for me nobody is at harm. The dark clouds and splitter-spatter of the rain just elevates me into another dimension for I am self-proclaimed hopelessly romantic being.

Rains are of different textures. Be the passionate, torrential downpours or the simple and soft drizzles, and everything in between, there are absolutely none that I do not love. Much like a glass of wine, a rain demands for you to indulge in it and enhance whatever it is you are feeling. Much like a lover, it asks for your attention and touch with a promise to make you feel beautiful.

Good morning, sunshine!

I know it sounds clichéd, but it’s true that our world is filled of negativity. You pick up a newspaper

or switch on the television and everything you read or hear is enraging, provoking and distressing enough to make you feel like a tiny, useless speck in this universe. To top it, like everyone around me, I’ve had my personal battles too. I’ve been broke- heart-broke and penniless-broke. And every time I’ve had a personal tragedy I’ve thought, “why me?” I’m sure that’s how everyone thinks, right? Some days I still find myself in pieces, which I then take a while to gather and fight the day.

My friends call me enormously positive. They say they’ve not seen anything that can bring me down. Touch wood, I hope that’s true! I hate being down. I love that feeling of elation when you bounce back, trivializing anything that was meant to make you feel like a sad failure. I love knowing that come what may I can look after myself and be the ‘simply fabulous me’. I also love knowing that every tragedy that befalls me will inevitable teach me something new that will remain with me for life. Unlike people, experiences are your friends for life.

But, I do also have fabulous friends who are the wind beneath my wings. And, I have amazingly supportive parents, from whom I’ve learnt of unconditional love. These are my biggest blessings; the force that keeps me going. And then there are these tiny things that whisper to me how lucky I am and how I should count my blessings every time I feel low. This blog is about those blessings.

It's my not so secret diary of everything that makes me smile; gentle happy smile, a soft melancholic smile or a thoughtful strained smile. If the world has decided to fill itself with negetivity, I've decided to be defiant and be all the hell more positive. Here, I share with you my little joys and happiness’, my inspirations and motivations, things that help me and keep me going. I hope it’ll interest you, if not help you. And I’d love to hear from you too. So, let’s keep this a two-way traffic of positivity!