Monsoon Romance

This topic has been done to death, I know. Every second person has something to say about monsoon. There are tons of anecdotes written, shared, published about the importance of rains in the life of a common man.Movies and novels all over the world depict this downpour as per the situation. Sometimes the downpour is taken as a backdrop for some spine-chilling murder scene and at other times it is switched to bring out the freshness of teenage romances.. And when it comes to me, my memories are rich in monsoon romances. :D

I stayed in Cochin for the past two years. The monsoon is usually harsh in these parts of India. The rain comes crashing down with such volume and speed that it is usually a matter of seconds before you are completely drenched.Umbrellas are useless; since you are usually wet by the time you open them. If by any stroke of luck you already have it open, the winds will blow it away anyway.

But i love every face of rain, and its mid June already. But the clouds were nowhere to be seen. And one evening, while i was busy doing nothing, it started raining.

The rains were here to stay ousting the scorching summer heat. The waspish humidity was finally replaced by a titillating chill in the atmosphere. I enjoyed looking at the trees swaying rhythmically as if to thank the showers for coming to their rescue. I hit my bed early, all tucked up to my blanket..

“Its amazing how u can speak right to my heart...

Without saying a word u can light up the dark.”

My phone rang. I cursed myself for not putting it in silent mode..i pulled the blanket over my ears. And it started ringing again..And finally it stopped, leaving me wide awake. I took my alarm to check the time. it was 6.10

It had rained heavily the whole night and it looked like the rains were not yet done. The drizzling continued presumptuously this morning too. Anyone would like this atmosphere… I just loved it. The only thing that made this wonderful feeling incomplete was my boyfriend’s absence, and i am locked in this wretched hostel room. The whole of Thursday I found myself beseeching him not to go to Chennai to meet his friends. but he kept insisting that he had to. and he can’t take me with him ,as it is a get-together of the so called bachelors...I felt like hell as he was going back US next Monday.. I finally had to give up and kept sulking all the while. Though the rains had somehow managed to cheer me up, the cool showers made me feel his absence and want him with me all the more. I was half awake, but it being a Saturday and there being no agenda in his absence, restrained myself from getting out of the bed. I closed my eyes and kept hugging the pillow thinking it was him and kept humming …

“You want love… We will make it …
Swim in a deep sea …of blankets…”

This sort of an eventuality was next to impossible for the next one year. but how my heart desired that it be true right now. I didn’t know what to feel like… feel sad because he wasn’t with me or feel happy because it felt like i was in his arms. My silent struggle of addressing this dilemma was broken by the resonating phone. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that i forgot to check my missed call list.“Who could it be now???” I wondered. I hate it when that damn thing rings and hate it even more when it disturbs my thoughts. I somehow got up to pick the phone, keeping one eye closed to avoid coming out of my romantic fantasy completely. The yellow screen was blinking and it was him.

I was just thinking about him,(though I do that all the time)and he called in this odd time. He was supposed to be sleeping like a log, from yesterday’s hangover. I was excited. At least I could talk to him. I took the derelict handset and stood in the window…moved the shutter and let the desiring chill take over me. The next moment I could feel goose bumps all over me. The phone continued to resonate. I finally took the call.

“Why do you take so much time to pick the phone “
“Uh … I was sleeping.. U know how deep i sleep” I said … thrusting my hand out of the window to feel the rain.

“The weather is beautiful here … and I miss you love … I told you not to go but you just don’t listen …Now I am all alone and forlorn here” I added trying my best to sound sad and lonely

He laughed. That’s precisely what I wanted to hear, his laughter. I loved him all the time but I loved him more when he laughed.. It was one of the myriad responses of him that I loved. “I want you to do something for me…” he said lovingly knowing that I could hardly refuse anything he said in this tone. “ I want you to go to the airport; my missed luggage has reached there. I am stuck here.wont be reaching there by tomorrow evening. So you go and get the things soon, else your chocolate is going to be in the form of syrup. U wants to have it that way???

“Hello mister” I said sounding a bit stern.. “I hope you are not nuts!!! “it’s raining heavily here and you want me to go out at this time..Excuse me??” the Excuse me part coming a bit loud and gruff. “So you won’t get it for me!!!” he said in a dull voice and with an intention to defeat me in the argument.” and i fell for it.. ….!!!...”gimmie 5 minutes .. i will get ready and will call you back,” and I hung up. I was still half asleep. but ran to the bathroom. I don’t know if I brushed with the toothpaste or the face wash..somehow i managed to get into my favourite blue jeans, and a white T. locked the room and got out.. oops!!! I forgot my jacket. Damn it.i cursed me for my hurry.It has stopped raining. Just a silent drizzle remained. In a hurry to get an auto before it starts raining again, i brushed my hair and put on the jack on my way to the gate.

I took my phone out, and called him.. he took for the second ring. “ you look like an angel” he said.. “What the heccckkkk !!!”..i looked around.. There he was …. standing outside the compound, beneath a tree, that barely protected him from the rain.. I said surprised and elated… “ You are such a … I’ll be there.” Then every moment without him seemed to be an eternity.. i ran to him..I was all baffled. He was smiling.. the way i loved..he was watching me climb down the steps, anticipating how happy I would be.. i was breathing heavily. Couldn’t say anything for a moment..i smiled. And he was looking with his mischievous eyes, a grin on his face...i caressed his hair..

“let’s go”, he said and put his hand round mine and smiled at me …“where???” I asked.. he blinked his eyes and said,”u gonna love there” I pinched his cheek.. We climbed to an auto.. and it has stopped raining. I continue on talking all the way, saying how happy i am to have him here today.he took me to fort cochin, to the beach.. i can’t belive he did it. I always wanted to go there with him.. its my favourite place. I have been here many times before..but today, it was different, the climate, him. Everything seemed to be so perfect..We took long walks down the beach and were so engrossed; it was hard to believe that it is real.. As the day progressed, it did nothing to break this beautiful dream. And just when I thought that it couldn't get better, it started pouring again.

We were drenched and ran for shelter towards a small sea side cafe. There, sitting by the huge glass windows, I saw the raindrops meet the sea. There was a huge white rain curtain by our side, hot coffee and tuna sandwich on the table and a perfect date in front.

I didn’t physically met him after that, its been two years since then. and I am waiting for him to come back. but I meet him during each monsoon, as the rains start and form a white curtain ,with his eyes looking into mine..

Another monsoon is on the door..

In Pursuit Of Happiness

Everyone is in an eternal quest for happiness. No one longs for misery, but we all end up creating unhappiness.. like many, I too had these question in my mind. why so? people want something but end up somewhere else. Isn't that quite strange?

From the very beginning,when a child, is born,is brought up,wrong mechanisms are fed into his mind,wrong attitudes are fed. No one is trying to make him wrong,but wrong people are all around. They cannot be anything else, they are helpless.A child is born without any mental pattens, just a deep longing for happiness is there but he doesn't know how to achieve it;the how is unknown.This much is certain:he knows that happiness is to be attained. He will strongly struggle his whole life but he doesn't know the means, the methods how is to be achieved,where it is to be achieved,where he should go to find it. The society teaches him how to achieve happiness, and the society is wrong.

A child want happiness,but we don't know how to teach him to be happy. And whatsoever we teach him, it become the path towards misery. For example,we teach him to be good,we teach him not to do certain things and to do certain things,without ever thinking, " is it natural or unnatural?" We say, "Do this, don't do that." Our 'good' may be unnatural- and if whatsoever we teach as good is unnatural,then we are creating a pattern of misery.For example, a child is angry and we say, " anger is bad, don't be angry." But anger is natural,and just by saying "don't be angry" we are not destroying anger, we are just teaching the child to suppress it. Suppression will become misery because whatsoever is suppressed becomes poisonous. It moves into the very chemicals of the body, it is toxic. And continuously teaching "Don't be angry" we are teaching him to poison his own system.

One thing we are not teaching him:how not to be angry. We are simply teaching him how to suppress anger. And we can force him because he is dependent on us. He is helpless, He has to follow us. If we say, "don't be angry" then he will smile-that smile will be false. Inside he is bubbling,inside he is in turmoil, inside there is fire and he is smiling outside.

A small child- we are making a hypocrite out of him. He is becoming false and divided. He knows that his smile is false. His anger is real but the real has to be suppressed and the unreal has to be forced. He will be split. And by and by the split will become so deep,the gap will become so deep,that whenever he smiles he will smile a false smile.

And if he cannot be really angry then he cannot be really anything, because reality is condemned. He cannot express his love, he cannot express his Ecstasy: he has become afraid of the real. If you condemn one part of the real the whole reality is condemned, because reality cannot be divided and a child cannot be divided and a child cannot divide.

One thing is certain:the child has come to understand that he is not accepted. As he is, he is not acceptable. The real is somehow bad,the real him, so he has to be false. He has to use faces,masks. Once he has learned this the whole life will move in a false dimension. And the false can only lead to misery, the false cannot lead to happiness. Only the true,authentically real, can lead you towards ecstasy,towards peak experiences of life- love,joy,peace whatever you name them.

Everybody is brought up in this pattern,so you long for happiness but whatever you do creates misery. The first thing towards happiness is to accept oneself and the society never teaches to you to accept yourself. t teaches you to condemn yourself, to be guilty about yourself,to cut many parts. It cripples you,and a crippled man cannot reach to the goal. and we are all crippled.

Attachment is misery. But form the very beginning the child is taught for attachment. you are supposed to love your father because he is your father, you are supposed to love your mother ,cause she is your mother_as if someone is a father or a mother automatically makes him lovable.Just being a mother doesn't mean much or just being a father does not mean much. To be a father is to pass through a great discipline,one has to be lovable.To be a mother is not just to give birth,to b a mother means a great training, a great inner discipline- one has to be lovable.

If the mother is lovable the child will love without any attachment. And wherever he will find that someone is lovable,he will love. But sometimes mothers are not lovable, fathers are not lovable; they have never thought in those terms- that love is a quality.You have to create it, you have to become it. You have to become it. You have to grow to it. Then only you can create love in others. It cannot be demanded. If you demand it,it can become attachment, but not love.

So the child will love the mother because she is his mother. The mother or father,they become the goals. These are relationships, not love. Then he become attached to the family, and the family is a destructive force because the family of the neighbour is separate; it is not lovable because you don't belong to it. then your community, your nation..

you cannot love the whole humanity:your family is the root cause. And the family has not been bringing you up to be a lovable person and a loving person- it is forcing some relationships. Attachment is a relationship,and love ..., love is a state of mind. Your father will not say to you "be loving" , because if you are loving you can be loving to anybody. Even sometimes the neighbour may be more lovable than your father, but the father cannot accept this, that anybody can be more lovable than him,because he is your father. So relationship has to be taught,not love.same applies to the country.this is my country, that's why i have to love this country.if simple this is taught,to love, then you can love any country.there wont be any war. i will be in love with this world.not just a country nor just a region..

The whole society is teaching you relationships,attachments,not love. Love is dangerous because it knows no boundaries. It can move,it is freedom. So your wife Will teach you, 'love me,because i am your wife'. the husband is teaching the wife "love me, because i am your husband". nobody is teaching love.If simply love is taught, then wife can say, 'That person is more lovable". If the world is really free to love,then just being a husband could carry any meaning, just being a wife wouldn't mean anything. then love would freely flow. there will be boundaries..no rules of love.;love itself will rule.But this is dangerous- society cant allow it,the family cant allow it,the religion cant allow it..So in the name of love they teach you attachment,and then everybody is in misery.

True love, the non-attachment means be natural, loving,flowing,but don't get obsessed and addicted.Addiction is the problem. Then it is like a disease. You cannot love anybody except your child-this is addiction.Then you will be in misery. Your child can die,then there is no possibility for your love to flow. Even if your child is not going to die,he will grow.And the more he grows the more he will become independent, more distant. And then there will be pain. Every mother suffers,every father suffers.and this entire circle repeats ..

Love never gives you misery,because if you love someone you love his happiness. If you are attached to someone you don't love his happiness,you love only your selfishness; you are concerned only with your own egocentric demands..

According to Freud,there is something called mother or father fixation. He says the most dangerous mother is the one who forces the child to love her so much that he becomes fixed-and he will not be able to love anybody else..he says almost all the husbands,at least ninety-nine percent,are trying to find their mothers in their wives. Ofcourse,you cannot find your mother in your wife;your wife is not your mother,she is another individual with her own character and personality. but a deep fixation with the mother,and then they are dissatisfied with the wife because she is no similar to his mother.. fixations or attachments whatever you call them opposes love, don't get fixed,be flowing. don't be like ice cubes,be like water,flowing ,don't be frozen.

Every attachment becomes a frozen thing,dead. It is not vibrating with life,it is not constantly moving response.It is not alive moment to moment,it is fixed. You love a person;if it is love then you ca not predict what is going to happen next moment. It is impossible to predict, to expect, mood changes like weather. You can not say the next moment also your lover will be loving to you. He may not feel like loving the next moment,you cannot expect it.If he also loves you the next moment it is good,you are thankful. If he is not loving in the next moment nothing can be done,you are helpless. You have to accept the fact that he is not in the mood.Nothing to cry about,simply there is no mood! You accept the situation.You don't force the lover to pretend,because pretension is dangerous.

If i feel loving towards you i say," I love you", but the next moment i can say . "No , I don't feel any love in this moment.". So there are only two possibilities left. either to accept my non-loving mood,or you force that, "whether you love me or not,at least show me that you love me". If you force me then i become false and the relationship becomes a pretension,a hypocrisy. then we are not true to each other. And two persons who are not true to each other, how can they be in love? their relationship will have become a fixation.being fixed means you can not accept anything new in it, only the past. You don't allow the present,you don't allow the future to change anything.And life is changing, only death is unchanging.

Be non-attached, be flowing,accepting whatever life brings. Don't demand and don't force. Life is not going to follow you. you can not force life to be according to you. It is better to flow with the river rather than pushing it. just flow with it. Much happiness becomes possible. There is already much happiness all round you, but you can not see it because of your wrong fixations.

Kill all that poisons your love, kill all the obstacles,destroy all the obstacles that kill your love.