Complete in the company of solitude.....

Off and on I have realized that I am quite the feminist, even if not to a point of extremity, but definitely not to the liking of many. I possibly wasn't so right from the beginning, but time and tide have brought about quite a few changes in me. Probably its nothing unusual.....that's the basic nature of time....to bring about change, for the better or for worse. People who have known me since those early days, might agree to my personal observation that I have changed drastically in many aspects.....from being the soft, docile, reserved and shy person to one who now voices out her opinion loud and clear, sometimes to the displeasure of many around J, one who is very vocal about her standpoint irrespective of what others would feel or think about her based on that.....I guess I have become sort of unapologetic about being ME....now if this is seriously a complete turn over, or just a facade to handle the rough tides in the ocean of life, while deep down I am still the coy one I visibly was at some point of time.....I still don't know!

Coming back to the point of being 'quite the feminist'....given this, I would any day choose to tread a singular path rather than fall back in line with others to simply have the comfort of company. Of course easier said than done....there are still numerous roadblocks every time I decide or wish to take the road less taken....sometimes I make it, while sometimes I am still forced down by pressures of societal norms and emotional harnesses.

For the few (or many) times that I have actually been able to take the off beat course, I have realized a very subtle but extremely basic truth that goes with human existence.....I will not term it as a need, because it is possible to survive sans it, but it still is a very elementary instinct, that being the longing for companionship. 

I realized this through a lot of encounters amongst which, is a small incident that I would like to bring up in this context. Having been known as an animal lover, I had a birthday gift of a lone fish as a pet from one of my friends early this year. Although happy, I was also extremely apprehensive about taking care of this fragile creature as my complete past pet experience lay with pooches and felines. Nevertheless, I tried my best to give him the best of whatever I could gather about his needs. Things went well for quite a few months with occasional bouts of disturbance, but eventually falling back to normal. In all these days that this lone tiny living being was with me, every time I was alone in the house due to professional commitments of my better half, although confined to his area of a few gallons of water....he gave me a sense which said "someone is there"....an unexplained sense of company. However, a few days back when inspite of all the efforts to keep him going, I lost him, the same house and the same situation of staying alone in the house gave me an unpleasant sensation of being totally on my own....ALONE!!

Given a set of circumstances and situations in life, isolation or existence in solitude might appear to be an inevitable and also a nonpareil solution. It takes a mighty and free spirited heart to embrace the decision of solitary existence leaving behind all the shackles that are meant to bind you up with your surroundings of live and inanimate objects. At this juncture of life, being on the wrong side of the thirty mark, and also having become the sort of person who is unapologetic about being herself, I admit that I prefer to be on my own and live life on my own terms and given the choice and the chance I would choose to do so any day. But at the same time, there is this unseen and unknown apprehension,sitting pretty somewhere on my mind, of living a completely solitary life.

Solitude has always been a very captivating idea to me right from my early years. As a teenager, one of my favourite poems had always been 'The Solitary Reaper' by William Wordsworth. I am sure most people would have read this poem at some point in life. The idea of a young woman reaping and singing a sad song to herself alone in a field somehow just caught my attention, never to leave J. I also have a couple of favourite quotes on solitude that go as below -

"Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature", this one by Albert Einstein and another one by Henry David Thoreau that goes like "I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude"......coming of age in life has enabled me to strongly relate to the idea churned out by these quotes.....somehow making me feel liberated, complete and at peace in the company of SOLITUDE.....a feeling that is so endearing yet unnerving!!!

The Final Destination....

A few days back, as I was going through my daily dose of internet skimming, I chanced upon a very interesting one - liner - "Never take life too seriously, nobody gets out alive anyway".....hell yeah, the ultimate truth of life...DEATH, there's no escaping the clangs of it. But this brings up quite a few thoughts in this peculiarly curious catty mind of mine. 

First, isn't this just the opposite of what we have been told right from our childhood. Study hard, take life seriously, else you will end up having a messed up career and future!!! And hence, we, burdened and alarmed by the very thought of ruining our future, in all honesty, start taking each and every item in the menu of life seriously....may be a competition, an exam to begin with.....a few years later, securing a seat in a renowned educational institution, a job interview, an assignment at work which gets linked up to the obvious prospect of an increment or a promotion.....further on, the choice of a life partner - oh dear, will he/she live upto the standards, will the society and family approve of my choice, what if they don't, safer option - leave it to the others to decide.......then, savings - to ensure a comfortable life for the family, loans, EMIs, kids, their future and the list just goes on......and before we realize we are standing at the gates to bid adieu to this world with death staring us in the face. So, when did we stick to the "don't take life seriously" instruction? Did we actually live or did we just scramble away through life in an attempt to stick to the rulebook, meet other's expectations, putting off what the inner self truly pined for thinking..."Ahh, there's a lot of time for that".

Too late now, its time to step into the other world......say your goodbyes and tag along with "Yamdev - the God of Death". For a lucky few who are whisked away while in the cradle of dreams and for a few others for whom it all gets over in a matter of seconds before they can even comprehend that it just happened, at the cost of sounding cruel, I would still say, its a blessing in disguise....but for the rest, from what I have seen and experienced, its an immensely traumatic affair. The knowledge that its time to leave, that all you lived for and lived with, has to be left behind, can be extremely painful. Letting go can be a difficult task at hand, especially for the acutely emotional ones. I, for e.g., am one who gets emotionally attached to anything or anyone that I decide to give that space in life.....it could range from entities as important as the family, that special someone, to just a person I have met, a friend to even something as simple as a workplace that I am used to. Walking away from these due to circumstances in life, say a change of job, is in itself a hideous task for me. This, even when there is a slim chance that life might turn a full circle and bring me back to what I leave behind now. Given that, I can't help but imagine what an intense wave of sentiments a finality like death could bring in on me. If I were to be aware of the fact that I will be leaving behind all that I ever held dear, I would die a death every single moment till my wait for the end is over.

Who says then, that suicide is an act of cowardice. In my opinion it takes a hell lot of courage to decide and let go off life and all that is associated with it. Having said that, let me add, I am not here to say that giving up on life is a wonderful thing to do. Living and facing the challenge that life brings with it is an act of greater intrepidity. But I have often heard people comment in such cases that, if only the person had thought about all he/she was leaving behind.....if only the person had been a tad bit stronger. It is in that context that I say, no one should assume that an extreme step is always a result or sign of weakness. It might as well have been the tipping point after having stayed strong for too long. And no one can fathom what it could have taken that person to consciously let go off....everything. 

Now that I have said all the above, although it might appear to be so, the fact is I am not scared of death. I have been handed over my share ( and possibly a little more than what I had expected J ) of the tough tasks that life ( being the tough task master ) hands over to each one that lands up on the face of this earth. I have had my moments of "weakness" or "strength".....but so far I have sailed through them and I hope I can do so with grace every time in whatever period of my life remains, until its time for me to walk over to the other side of the rainbow.

And just as I come to a close, in the benefit of those who have been kind enough to reach upto this point of my monograph, inspite of the extremely dark and heavy mood that it carries, let me just end this on a positive and hopeful note - "Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here lets dance it away". J J J

Of tears with promises.....

Ever seen a bride shed those pearl drops from her eyes just when her father gives her hand away in marriage...or when the man of her dreams marks her a married woman by colouring her red or tying that sacred black string of beads called the mangalsutra around her neck.....ever wondered what those tears carried within? Some will invariantly question, why cry....why the drama....isn't it a happy occasion? Well of course it is, so you could very well term these as simple tears of joy.....but being a woman and having gone through the emotion in person I can safely say, it is much more than just that.....

Daddy's little princess, brought up with the utmost love and care, has to walk into a new world leaving behind a space which was her whole till that moment.....into a new world that she now has to make her own. She has her dreams about that pristine world. At the same time she's aware of what comes with it, that unseen responsibility of being able to become a part of the menage as soon as she steps into it.....with the same kind of solubility that one would expect from a pinch of salt in a glass of water. No matter the age....be it a bubbly girl fresh out of college or a lady who has seen her share of the world....walking into the boundaries of matrimony at once makes it mandatory that she should become that perfect image of maturity and balance who can just change herself in a fleeting moment to fit the expectations that the new family has.....and more often than not, no matter how tough the challenge, she tries her best to live up to it...... J

So here comes yet another question....why does she? If it is that much trouble indeed, who asked her to? She can choose to ignore the expectations and live as she pleases.....after all it's the age aspiring gender equality.....isn't it? But this is not about a battle of the sexes.....it is all about those tears of dreams and promises......she does it for him, and for the life she carried as a dream in her eyes.....that perfect life with him!!

Alas, life doesn't come all that easy and sorted out....does it? Time and tide take their toll, and life becomes this roller coaster ride of highs and lows......and somewhere in the everyday mundane struggle to find our place in the crazy rat race, the hopes and promises are consigned to oblivion... J

But somewhere in a tiny safe hidey-hole of the heart, the dream lives on, peeking out at every instance that serves as a reminder of bits and pieces of that phantasm.....sometimes as wistful tears and sometimes as a sigh of an unfulfilled wish....

And what is life without hope....without a yearning for the unattained.....and so she keeps the ball of life rolling....holding on to the tears of promises....waiting for the day when she can finally live her dream!!! JJJ