Of life and death

I’ve been thinking, is there a fixed number of smiles and tears that are spread and shed in this world? Or is there such a fixed number for each life? Is it that for every hour that you spend smiling and being truly happy, there’s another hour in the offing that has to be spent being angry or perhaps regretting, even crying?

P.B. Shelley did write “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” His purpose may have been to give heart and hope to those who needed it but I have come to know from experience, that the opposite is equally true. After every bright, sunny day, the cold, dark night is but moments away. Happiness and melancholy seem to be alternating… Even as many like to believe that leading a happy life has a lot to do with destiny and one’s karma , I can’t shrug off the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there’s a pattern to this randomness. It is not simply about luck, people’s behaviour and outlook towards life but something more. Something none of us have been able to put a finger on.

I know it’s a pretty surreal, almost obscure thought, but it seems to be leading somewhere…I don’t know where. It seems to be one of those life’s unsolvable mysteries, another one of which is what happens after death. Is there life on the other side? Is it a better life? Philosophers, religious leaders, saints and sadhus all have their own version but how does one know the real one? One can’t.

I guess that’s what life is: inscrutable, indecipherable and ever-changing. And I believe it’s best left that way. The more one prods, broods, questions things that clearly aren’t meant to be known, and not even that important, the unhappier one is. Ignorance is bliss after all, and some knowledge/power is just not worth it. Yes, I’m thinking of Dr. Faustus too.

A suitable price, please?

He says write only when you have the urge, otherwise don’t waste your and other’s time, and don’t kill trees. He also says there are no rules and that as a writer, you make your own rules. He is one of the best I’ve seen, and one I look forward to reading. Sadly, the last bit isn’t going to happen in a hurry. Firstly because I’ve more or less given up reading; and secondly because his books are way out of my wallet’s reach. It seems almost like a conspiracy to make literature elitist, a domain exclusive to those high-headed, arrogant intellectuals who are too full of themselves to be tolerable.

I concede that it may be an ill-founded accusation but I believe I should be excused for I feel so let down, betrayed. We know it’s not a fair world-there’s unequal distribution of wealth, happiness and just about everything else-but this common piece of knowledge doesn’t make the fact any easier to accept.

It sucks that I can’t buy a book i so want to buy/read/get signed. It sucks that i have to spend my parents' money and don't have enough of my own. Also, it sucks that i can't see things through to their logical conclusion and lose the drive mid-way, much like this post.

Jo bekhauf dooba vahi toh chala aaya paar.

I'm doing this post for no other reason than that this song is playing and i can't hold my tears back.

I believe that a lot of times in life, one has to take a leap of faith and believe that people around you and the Superpower watching over you will see you through everything. Winning is a lot more fun and losing a lot less difficult when you have the right people by your side.

My life is full of such leaps of faith. It's funny how i was taking them without knowing it even in my not so brief atheistic phase. Being in a relationship, i've figured, was one too. I'd rather not trace the trajectory of this one since that has never been a very happy experience with both of us having wildly different memory/view/interpretations of pretty much everything. It's all the more bizarre because sometimes it's like talking about two different, unrelated events altogether.

I was trying to make a point here. Something about how this relationship has been an enriching experience regardless of all the tears and mad, mad fights. Although talking about the positives feels highly imbued with ulterior motives since i've successfully managed to drag my tired boyfriend online and know that he's probably reading it.

I don't know how i feel about that. There goes my next post.

Mann ke matt pe mat chaliyo ye jeete ji marva dega?

I've been thinking. In matters of love, who should one give more importance to : the head or the heart? It's a critical question since they both seem to be saying the exact opposite things in my case, more or less all the time. Since i still have a relationship, clearly, the little, love struck, romantic voice of my heart has been outweighing the rational yet, i must admit, littler voice of my head. Until now, that is.

I've been thinking of going the pros-and-cons-list way but that's always my last option and i'm not sure it's time for that just yet. I don't feel very comfortable with changing my life drastically on the basis of two lists i arbitrarily drew up; partly because life isn't black and white like that, but mostly because it sucks that i always want to do what i shouldn't be doing according to the list. So i decided to write here.

Do i stay because i like to believe that we can still be good together or do i get out because a small part of me knows it won't be the same ever again? Does it make sense to be with a man who's almost expecting me to cheat on or break off with him unsolicitly as soon as i get more exposure, meet more men, translation : come across better options? Do i take it as an insult? Is he saying i don't have options and i'm desperate and promiscuous by nature(which i guess he thinks all women are, by virtue of their two Xs)? Or do i oversee it as a manifestation of his insecurity and empathise?

What are the implications of expecting promiscuity and inevitable break-up in a relationship? I don't know the answer yet, but i know it has more far reaching consequences than i've been able to expect or even understand.

I do know, however, that all's not well when noone trusts noone anymore. At least one of the two has to be the blind fool who believes everything--genuinely and unquestioningly. When this one person takes off the blindfold too, you know you have trouble on your hands and it is perhaps, only a matter of time from hereon.

Move on?

I've been wondering... How do we know what it is that we really want out of a relationship?

How do we figure out if our relationship is really on a decline, or if it's just one of those minor speed bumps that one encounters ever so often in a passionate love relationship?

Perhaps the number of speedbumps encountered per week is a sign, but can emotions be quantified and dealt with mathematically? Could it be that the fights are a sign of increasing closeness, a marker of that uncomfortable period of transition after which you emerge a more mature couple?

How do we know if we should stay because it's fulfilling and makes us happy; or get out because there is no future in sight and any later could be too late? Besides, how can one be so sure that there really is no future? Even if there isn't, is having a future and a marriage really all that important?

Why is it that we are okay with moving on to more "stable" relationships with guys who perhaps earn more or are about our age or are cuter, instead of staying with the man we love and seeing our love through thick and thin? Is finding love really like finding that perfect job, almost unattainable without switching a lot at first? Is love really the stuff of the lost Eden, no more to be found in this fallen world, or can a girl still hope?