Nice Guys Finish Last!

This is a befitting tribute to all us nice guys.

The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores.

This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it.

This is for that time she interrupted the best scoring spree you’d ever orchestrated in a good game of tennis to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that!

I know now for a fact that nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, is the fact that women are just plain illogical when it comes to nice guys!

Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks.

Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all us nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs our patience in the department store, our holding open of doors, our party escorting services, our propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things we tolerate, for all the situations where we are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. Boy, we sure do have credibility in society, and our well deserved vindication is coming. Hum honge kaamyaab - tra la la - hum honge kamyaab...ek din... ;-)

Calcutta: The City of Joy...contd

More on Kolkata...

Preeti sent this across to me, knowing fully well how much of a Calcutta hangover I am still nursing, almost a month since I visited the place. Looks like I'm not the only guy to come away enamoured of the city.

A nice piece this, succulent with the flavours of all things warmly Kolkata. :) and apt sequel to my take on Calcutta in the piece on 'Oh Calcutta!'

Vir Sanghvi on Calcutta...

Most modern Indian cities strive to rise above ethnicity. Tell anybody who lives in Bombay that he lives in a Maharashtrian city and (unless of course, you are speaking to Bal Thackeray) he will take immediate offence. We are cosmopolitan, he will say indigenously. Tell a Delhiwalla that his is a Punjabi city (which, in many ways, it is) and he will respond with much self-righteous nonsense about being the nation's capital, about the international composition of the city's elite etc. And tell a Bangalorean that he lives in a Kannadiga city and you'll get lots of techno-gaff about the internet revolution and about how Bangalore is even more cosmopolitan than Bombay.

But, the only way to understand what Calcutta is about is recognize that the city is essentially Bengali. What's more, no Bengali minds you saying that. Rather, he is proud of the fact. Calcutta's strengths and weaknesses mirror those of the Bengali character. It has the drawbacks: the sudden passions, the cheerful chaos, the utter contempt for mere commerce, the fiery response to the smallest provocation. And it has the strengths (actually, I think of the drawbacks as strengths in their own way). Calcutta embodies the Bengali love of culture; the triumph of intellectualism over greed; the complete transparency of all emotions, the disdain with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated; the warmth of genuine humanity; and the supremacy of emotion over all other aspects of human existence.

That's why Calcutta is not for everyone. You want your cities clean and green; stick to Delhi. You want your cities, rich and impersonal; go to Bombay. You want them high-tech and full of draught beer; Bangalore's your place. But if you want a city with a soul: come to Calcutta.

When I look back on the years I've spent in Calcutta - and I come back so many times each year that I often feel I've never been away - I don't remember the things that people remember about cities. When I think of London, I think of the vast open spaces of Hyde Park. When I think of New York, I think of the frenzy of Times Square. When I think of Tokyo, I think of the bright lights of Shinjiku. And when I think of Paris, I think of the Champs Elysee. But when I think of Calcutta, I never think of any one place. I don't focus on the greenery of the maidan, the beauty of the Victoria Memorial, the bustle of Burra Bazar or the splendour of the new Howrah 'Bridge'. I think of people. Because, finally, a city is more than bricks and mortars, street lights and tarred roads. A city is the sum of its people. And who can ever forget - or replicate - the people of Calcutta?

When I first came to live here, I was told that the city would grow on me. What nobody told me was that the city would change my life. It was in Calcutta that I learnt about true warmth; about simple human decency; about love and friendship; about emotions and caring; about truth and honesty. I learnt other things too. Coming from Bombay as I did, it was a revelation to live in a city where people judged each other on the things that really mattered; where they recognized that being rich did not make you a better person - in fact, it might have the opposite effect. I learnt also that if life is about more than just money, it is about the things that other cities ignore; about culture, about ideas, about art, and about passion. In Bombay, a man with a relatively low income will salt some of it away for the day when he gets a stock market tip. In Calcutta, a man with exactly the same income will not know the difference between a debenture and a dividend. But he will spend his money on the things that matter. Each morning, he will read at least two newspapers and develop sharply etched views on the state of the world. Each evening, there will be fresh (ideally, fresh-water or river) fish on his table. His children will be encouraged to learn to dance or sing. His family will appreciate the power of poetry. And for him, religion and culture will be in inextricably bound together.

Ah religion! Tell outsiders about the importance of Puja in Calcutta and they'll scoff. Don't be silly, they'll say. Puja is a religious festival. And Bengal has voted for the CPM since 1977. How can godless Bengal be so hung up on a religions festival? I never know how to explain them that to a Bengali, religion consists of much more than shouting Jai Shri Ram or pulling down somebody's mosque. It has little to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity.

The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal converge: emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of being together, the joy of celebration, the pride in artistic ex-pression and yes, the cult of the goddess. It may be about religion. But is about much more than just worship. In which other part of India would small, not particularly well-off localities, vie with each other to produce the best pandals? Where else could puja pandals go beyond religion to draw inspiration from everything else? In the years I lived in Calcutta, the pandals featured Amitabh Bachchan, Princes Diana and even Saddam Hussain! Where else would children cry with the sheer emotional power of Dashimi, upset that the Goddess had left their homes? Where else would the whole city gooseflesh when the dhakis first begin to beat their drums? Which other Indian festival - in any part of the country - is so much about food, about going from one roadside stall to another, following your nose as it trails the smells of cooking? To understand Puja, you must understand Calcutta. And to understand Calcutta, you must understand the Bengali. It's not easy.

Certainly, you can't do it till you come and live here, till you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your bloodstream and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love Calcutta forever. Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go with you. I know, because it's happened to me. And every Puja, I am overcome by the magic of Bengal. It's a feeling that'll never go away.

Sanghvi is the editor of The Hindustan Times

Bridges of Orkut County...

There’s nothing like an emotional high of re-establishing contact with ole’ pals who you’ve completely lost touch with. More so especially, if these are pals who’ve had considerable influence on your growth as an individual; pals, who in no small measure, have helped you come into your own over your growing years. It’s another matter then, ironic as it were, that as you came into your own, you also chose to go it that way, from then on, gradually having lost touch with your once close friends. It happens with all of us all the time as we battle the dilemma of ‘how much of ourselves and how many of our relationships to leave behind, as we move forward’

Aahhh…the story of life!

And then when- many summers down the line, when fate, guised in the name of Orkut, surreptitiously destined that you ‘network’ across six degrees of separation along each other’s path - you discover that, irrespective of the chasm of time between your last meeting and this one, the bridge of ‘connect’ still holds just as strong, the feeling of bonding becomes all the more intense. Engulfed by a tsunami of sweeping memories coming at large over you, you are surged in the nostalgic sea of time, almost drenched to you weather-beaten bones before you are washed miles ashore into the present – the now. The time to act is now, you realize!

It’s a defining moment in the history of that friendship from then on; almost like a milestone erected in the direction of its forward course. Wiser in retrospect now, you know this time over that you want to do all it takes in your ambit to nurture and nourish these bonds for good, silently expecting nonetheless that your efforts are equally reciprocated.

And with the dawn of that feeling begins a whole new chapter that is freshly inked on the pages of that long-lost forgotten book.

The more I delve into seeking the design behind such happy chance findings, the more I am convinced that life does give us all a second chance - and if not a new beginning, at least a whole new direction - with the people who’ve meant a lot to you - to make good the elapsed passages of lost time; the karmic principle of eternal hope in, and continuity across all creation, if you may!

Like the foggy silver of dawn against the brittle brown of passing time, these friends re-enter your life and complete you in ways you never even thought were possible after you last parted, gathering around you from all corners like a shawl against the winterliness of the incomplete world.

I’d guess it must work the other way too; having you back in their lives must have quite the same impact on them as well!

Like they say, in life, some relationships are simply just meant to be!

Thank you Orkut for making this so much more possible...

Sound of Music

Death they say is a great leveller. Obviously someone forgot to mention music. The ability of music, as a medium, to forge bonds is grossly unexplored.

It’s amazing to see how a diverse set of people resonate to the same wavelength whilst discussing music. Now come to think of it, music has always figured at some decible or the other in my discussions with almost all the people I’ve bonded well with. And interestingly, what consciously begins as an introductory understanding of each other’s tastes, besides of course proving to be an ingenious trick that melts the ice, leads into the sub-conscious realm of mapping datapoints to trace the persona of the other.

And so, if you were an ardent messaiah of say the Dave Mathews band then you can could bet nine on ten times that such a person would lend himself wholly to interests that would include a keen understanding in the genres concerning fusion, jazz/folk rock, poetry and off-beat cinema. Also given his taste in fusion/jazz, it'd lead for a connect to the way he'd chose to dress; unlike the twiddley rapster, hip-hopping to stocatto beats in baggy pants almost falling off his hips, this would be your guy who could best be described as the outcome of a cross between the well heeled dapper and the free-spirited hippie. Not for him are the pleasures of loose and oversized clothing. He'd rather have a pair of courduroys and a contrasting Tee, that sports an environmentally friendly message in synch with his 'activist' image as he goes about proclaiming the perils of non biodegradable plastic. Throw in a pair of sandals and a he's ready to take off to the next book reading meet across the corner someplace; for all you know, it'd be his very own! And so, voila, you'd figure he's well read and informed too. That'd open up a whole new vista for an engaging conversation...and a treasure trove of even more nuggets of singular information to be collected, organised, analysed and interpreted.

Having connected the dots thus, you almost have the person all carved and figured out without even so much as really having begun! Suddenly the both of you are bound by an ensuing crescendo of companionship as you find yourselves connected by the umblical chord of a common interest in music.

Long life heuristics.

Your taste in music most definitely defines 'who' you are. Elementary Watson...but of course!

That apart, I don't really know what it is about music that makes it great company to have especially when you're at the wheel negotiating your way through the endless traffic on your way back from work. Listening to the chattersome RJ play your favourite track/s on the radio is almost like a prayer answered. Humming along with the tune you find yourself smoothly cruising a nostalgic bend as you revisit memories that spawn a springburst of emotions - happy, melancholic, sad or sometimes even sombre. Flashes of
- a friend you've lost touch with,
- the warm satisfactory gaze of mom as she watches you devour that
amazing chicken dish she prepared especially for you, when you visited
home last,
- the comforting feel of a secure relationship
- a touching movie scene,
- a strained relationship now gone sour,
- a faint wallow of self pity for the life you could have, but dont, and
all because of a few wrong choices

all these and so much more come alive across the windscreen of your mind. And as you watch life whizz past you into the incandescence, you are left at the crossroads of an oxymoron. One minute you feel like you've moved a step behind from madding crowd as you take stock of what makes you feel the way you're feeling. And the very next minute, it's like as if you're leaving everything behind into the fading limelight of the evening as you zip through almost detached yet stronger in resolve to reclaim your life for what it's really worth.

And having experienced that million dollar feeling, you realise you've forged another key bond. Only this time it's with yourself!

A Song That ...
(stolen from alaina*marie the super*star)

~ You wish you wrote: No Such Thing- John Mayer
~ Reminds you of your best friend: too many to list here
~ Makes you cry: A Lifetime- Better Than Ezra
~ Makes you laugh: Jerusalem- Dan Bern
~ Reminds you of what you want: Banana Pancakes- Jack Johnson, Sunscreen
~ Has the best lyrics: Soar- Christina Aguilera
~ Sums up your teenage years: The Way We Get By- Spoon
~ You used to hate but now love: Somebody Told Me- The Killers
~ You like to wake up to: California- Phantom Planet
~ You like to fall asleep to: Follow Through- Gavin DeGraw
~ You like out of your parents record collection: any John Mellencamp
~ You sing when you're alone: Almost Perfect- Ingram Hill
~ You love which is from a movie: I Wonder- The Diffuser
~ Makes you think of stars: Somewhere Only We Know- Keane
~ Makes you think of the sun: All I Wanna Do- Sheryl Crow
~ Makes you think of the night: Cause A Scene- The Format
~ Makes you think of sex: Secret- Maroon 5
~ Makes you think of being alone: Mr. Jones- Counting Crows
~ Reminds you of Summer: Pieces Of Me- Ashlee Simpson~Reminds you
of Winter: The Beautiful Letdown- Switchfoot

Ohh Calcutta!

I'm in Kolkata at the moment (been here a week now on work) and boy, I'm in love with this city! It simply just grows on you from the very word 'go'. Now, I know why they call it the 'City of Joy'; everything, simply everything about this place is so 'sweet and happy,' right from the food (yummilicious!!!), the big lovely smiles that stare you in your face right out of every roadside hoarding, the Bengali language, the foot-tapping and ear-catching music scene (even the cabbies have great taste in music here...have you ever heard of a cabbie listen to jazz...!!!; mine does and ohh boy he knew so much!), the amazingly-affordable standard of living and but of-course the beautiful soft-spoken and genteel people or Bhodro-log (colloquial term - for the classes)...man, I'm in love all over again! Only this time, it's with a newly discovered city :-)

Talking of cities, you know what, I have a theory about them...


I have always believed that there is an irresistible magnetic lure about cities with a coastline or by a waterfront. And this makes them addictive.

I believe that such cities and the people therein have a quintessential character to them. And that, I believe has something to do with the element water. Acting like an oxidising agent, water it seems breathes life, energy and a sense of purposeful restlessness into the city it surrounds or is contained in. The flow is almost contagious in that you're instantaneously propelled into it as you pulsate to its beats. And before you can even say 'splash', you're gently bathed by the shower of its all embracing claim over your identity.


Then - and this is where the beautiful assimilation process begins - insidiously yet magically you find yourself woven into the cultural fabric of that city as you become an inseparable part of the breathing mosaic of its life.

...now just you think...Ganesh Chathurthi, the Kala-ghoda cultural fest and the Banaganga music festival in Mumbai, the Kali puja and jazz festival in Kolkata, the kuttcheri season in Chennai, the Karachi music and arts festival...all these are great cities (and the many more, I haven't yet visited) are characterised by a distinct identity and culture; and diverse as they may be, besides being geographically spread out, the one thing in common to them all is their proximity to water.
Some winding flow of thought that, now ain't it... ;-)

Incidentally, this post also goes out to my pal Sutirtha Sen and his lovely family who hosted my stay in Kolkatta and made it so memorable for me. In my week long stay at their home, I've been served rich dollops of the experience that is Kolkatta in myriad portion sizes that came my way in the course of my long animated discussions over breakfast and dinner with his folks about issues that ranged from politics and local culture to football (Mohun Bhagan rules o'er Sao Paulo anyday) and the weather to pretty Bengali women (hmmm, is it the fish they eat?) and finding me a one such for a bride! I for one am not complaining...'cause aamhake Kolkata (and all that it has to offer) khoob bhalo lage.

BOMBay!

First there was the deluge which caused not just the city to flood, but also the BMCs glib assurances of an efficient monsoon disaster management system; then came the Shiv Sena riots that held the city to a ransom – all over a defaced statue. And just as the Mumbaiite heaved a sigh in relief, believing that the worst was over, he was rudely jolted to witness that it had only all just begun!

The terror train attacks on 7/11 are a shocking reminder of just how easy a target we are, as a city, to the self-professed prophets of doom, as these zealots unleash a systemic destruction into the lives of hapless innocents; and all of this in their madness to seek vindication for a cause, the achieving of which they deem any approach fiendishly and mercilessly just!

The attacks have definitely taken a toll on the lives of the people of this beautiful city, but not so much as a even a dent has been caused on the mettle of its inherent spirit!

Much as I am aware that enough ink and soundbytes have been spent in saluting the nature of this famed resilience of the Megapolis, and equal amounts of the same in askance of cutting down the hype around this halo, I am tempted to offer my own take on the subject:

I believe that clichéd and beaten to the bone as all these acclamations sound, somewhere in them these clichés bind and extorts only the best in this city. Because in these, people find for themselves an identity; an identity they want to identify with and are therefore willing to go lengths to live it. It gives them hope and brings them an unparalleled sense of pride and belonging to this city which continues to give them emotional, economic and social support. A sort of self-fulfilling prophesy, if you please.

…agreed that more often than not, the ‘down-but-not-out’ and the resilient streak of the people of Mumbai stem more from a lack of available economic options to the common man than out of sheer love for the ideology it, but paradoxically then again, isn’t this trait in itself quintessentially representative of the spirit of Mumbai? That of the arrogant ability to take-on life as it comes by making the most of what is presently available, or for that matter, the ability of propelling oneself into magnetic lure of undertaking high risks today for big ticket returns of tomorrow. Quite surprisingly, and the history of this city has stood testimony to this fact, the risks more often than not handsomely pay off!!!

Eulogies like ‘The city of dreams’ and ‘Bindaaz Bambaiyya’, after all, weren’t coined in for nothing.

All these, however, hold no excuse, for the powers that run this city and the country at large, to hold back from their responsibilities in providing this city the infrastructure and security it truly deserves. After all aren’t we the highest tax-paying city in this country?

Saluting the spirit of Mumbai and singing paeans of the steely courage displayed by Mumbaiites is all fine, but it’s time the officials got their act in order and gave this city its (over)due. We’re fortunate than most other cities, in this country, to have a socially conscientious and alert citizenry that more than willingly does all to keep this city going, but let’s not push it. There is only so much one can do as a city in the absence of support patronage and funding from the state.

In the absence of a central leadership and an effective local disaster management plan, this city uncomfortably sits atop a fuming terror volcano that waits to erupt and consume everyone. Now if only the State and the Centre took time out from planning myriad ways of widening the tax base, shutting down dance bars and building a consensus over reservations, to listen and act proactively…

Meanwhile, here is a very thought provoking email from one of the Editors in TOI...well worth a pondersome read...


Dear all,

Today's Mid-Day edit (July 8th 2006) begins by saying that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that the chain of events starting from the Bhiwandi riots to the desecration of Meenatai's statue and what happened as an aftermath, to the serial blasts on the trains yesterday, means somebody somewhere wants Mumbaikar's to spill out on the streets and grab each other by the throats.

Incidentally, these same somebody-- the faceless outcasts that they still are-- have at least succeeded in one part of their plan. Mumbaikars have actually spilled out on to the streets.

The catch here is that they have failed to succeed in the second and most important part of their plan: that of getting Mumbaikars to grab each other by the throats. Mumbaikars spilled onto the streets-- in a collective show of the middle finger to those who proposed otherwise.

I know very well that you are already aware of how Mumbai stormed onto the streets to help the injured, the stranded and soothe the injuries that were still gaping along its life line.
There were capsules and capsules of streaming video that showed them offering water and refreshments to people stranded on SV Road and the Eastern and Western Express Highways.

There were captures of students of Sydenham and SNDT college, who camped at Churchgate station with the sole purpose of offering a bed to those stranded at the starting node of the life line.

And there was also that memorable grab of people standing patiently in front of KEM Hospital-- all in a serpentine queue, to donate blood. A result of which has been a no-shortage syndrome, when it comes to blood at all the hospitals where the injured are being treated or are recuperating.

But this is not about all that. And yet, it is about all that and more. It is about the sights I saw and the people I met with, while travelling along the Western Express Highway to Kandivali yesterday, between 7 in the evening and one in the morning.

It is about that little kid and his grandfather near Dadar, who, perhaps in the absence of anybody else in the household, took to the streets with bottles of water and packets of biscuits to contribute in whatever way possible in managing the crisis. "Uncle, you must be thirsty," the kid told me while offering the bottle. A parched me drank gratefully. And I saw in those eyes no fear. So what did those terrorists think while planting the bomb? That was at least the silent way of making one statement-- "Terror, my foot.!"

It is also about those housewives in front of a housing society near Santa Cruz, who were standing with pots of piping tea, water and God only knows what else to help those passing by. And they had this board beside them which read "Beyond Borivli, Can Stay'. I was lucky to get a cab, but there were people who were trying to make it on foot. And they needed succor. Rest. Shelter. It was raining.

It is about the autorickshaw driver, who finally reached me home in the interiors of Kandivali at 1 in the morning. And refused to take the night fare, despite being legally empowered to charge extra. "Nehi saab, aaj ki baat alag hai. Aap thik thak ghar pohuj gaye, yeh hi kafi hai," he bade me goodbye at my doorstep.

It is also about the dabbawala who provides me with my dinner everyday. His shop is near the Borivli station, where there was one of the biggest blasts at 6:34 in the evening. Yet, at one o clock in the morning, the dabba was there waiting at my doorstp to be picked up. It didn't need a note. The piping hot food at such an unearthly hour said it all.

The terrorists succeeded in synchronising a series of blasts that stopped the Mumbai lifeline for somewhere around seven hours. That was all that they achieved on 7/11. The trains were back on track by 1:30 in the morning and they plied all through the night. I wonder if the masterminds will consider this before planning their next attack. I would urge them to-- if this reaches any one of them-- to rethink. After all, what did a year of planning, six months of smuggling dangerous explosives, extensive netwroking and crores achieve at the end-- arond 200 lives and just seven hours of disruption? Bas! I won't budge for that. In the deal they united more than they dreamt to rip apart.

And by the way, I did not spot any member of the celebrated Readers' Digest survey team yesterday on the roads. Or perhaps they were there-- reconsidering their statement.

Deputy Editor-Medianet,

Times of India, Mumbai.


Celebrating the Spirit of Mumbai...Proud to be a Mumbaiite!
-- Sudip Ghosh

Code of Conundrums...

If there ever was a letter I've recieved that made me uncannily feel as if I had ghost-written it, then this'd have to be it!

The questions posed herein, and the ensuing residue of harboured emotion, as a fall-out of a cold, 'coming-to-grips-with-the-situation' kind of rationale, almost instantly strike a chord with the reader, bringing to fore memories of a time(s) we've all periodically battled, lonely for the most part, in the course of our respective journeys through life this far...

It takes one, reading a letter like this, to realise that, much as they make for strange bed fellows, the pleasure of growth has to be accompanied by the discomfiture pain, and so the twain shalst remain till death do them apart!

My very own journey this far, has made me the wiser in having taught me this, that there is no one solution to unravel the dichotomy of this dual code. Each must, in his own way and on his own terms decipher and unravel it to make sense and give meaning to their own perception of the world they inhabit.

...And whilst at it, I am reminded of something I read a long time ago in an editorial and wish to share with you:

The very observation of a phenomena, changes the nature of it.
By our constant quest into the nature of ourselves and of the workings of this universe,we may be changing not only that which we seek to investigate, but also our very perceptions, which are the instruments of that investigation.

Perhaps, this is the final insoluble mystery of the Cosmos; that when we have come to the end of all our explorations of it, we will find that we have only begun with the odyssey of our own self-discovery.

Read on then...


Dear Trev,

Loss hits you suddenly without warning or indication that today you are going to wake up to it. You suddenly realize that your warm security blanket,taken for granted for ever so long,has been ripped away leaving your battered soul naked and shivering cold.

There is first a terrifying numbness and then it hits you...HARD. With the final acceptance comes despair beyond words. You wonder how the sun can shine, how the world can actually go on, how people can smile and laugh and talk while you wade through torrents of endless grief.

Sometimes, if only for a minute,you may forget it all and the clouds lift a little. You look up to feel the warmth and instead are hit by a cold realization that things will never been the same again. Things that once seemed so complex, so important, so necessary fade away into nothingness. All you want perhaps, is for time to turn-to take back hurtful words, to prolong savoured memories or merely to remember better.

I don’t think it ever stops hurting. Every person who enters your life creates a world in you...a world that you never knew existed till they came into your life. And then they leave!!!

But, somehow perhaps it’s better that it happens that way. It aches, horribly at first, but then if you could not know it, feel it...you would also not have the bitter-sweetness of tenacious memory.

…Going through those not infrequent bouts of melanchony at the moment…

You know, I’m tired of being me. Honestly, I am becoming a person I don’t like too much. Morose, withdrawn and weepy…happiness and laughter used to come so easily to me...and I am angry with myself for letting go of it. I stand in the crowd and watch joy dance across peoples faces...and I’m silently screaming with the sheer agony of emotional loneliness…

Why do people change...why did I have to change? How do you mourn the dying of a dream? A dream that dies just a little more every day? You look around trying to grasp battered hope, letting go of everything else and you are left with nothing but emptiness...

Your emotions evolve and change shape, undergoing as if a sort of retrogressive maturity. I wrap myself up in this little cocoon of self pity choosing to ignore the world outside and I realize what an absolute fool I am making of myself.

Unfortunately knowledge is not always a predecessor of wisdom. What makes is worse is the realization that I made my own bed...made wrong choices...now it’s a little too late. Yes I know that you’re thinking – I’m over reacting and being paranoid. Maybe I am! But I can't help it; feel like I have been thrust into this frighteningly large,complex adult world without having gained the maturity I need to deal with it.

Fear…real and imaginary…seeps into my soul as my life changes form before my very eyes.. Thank you for putting up with me and my eccentricity...I know it must be an awfully trying task.

Love,

...


I'll just say this, my dear friend, that the things you love, will eventually gather around you like a shawl against the winterliness of this world, protect you and warm you, ushering you into the spring time of your days. And this will be your key to unlock that puzzling code of life.

That's the story of life!