Solitude | Tanhai

 We came into this world alone. We leave this world alone. And In between, the most precious thing : Life.

It is in this 'life' that we seemingly cast off that cloak of loneliness - we are shrouded with those around us; those we meet, come across, form some of the greatest relationships ever. The motions keep you out of that overall truth that it is an existence of you - only you - when it comes down to the core of things.

You may share a smile, a hug, your love, with those who enter your lives and win your heart. You come across those who you believe understand you so well, those who will 'always and forever' be there with you, for you. Days go by with you spending every moment with those who call you your best friend; you go through these many hours a day sharing laughter and humour, or crying together, sharing your innermost thoughts, your deepest dreams, opening your hearts for them to enter and make themselves at home in. You keep following this path with them, believing there will always be a tomorrow of happiness, if not happiness with the cruel world, then with the knowledge of togetherness. Some nights you lay in the dark smiling happily at the thought that you've found someone you makes you look forward to waking up for. You develop an appetite for sharing those moments together.

We find happiness and comfort in being with those special persons who seem to be made for us. Those who make us laugh, and who we in turn make laugh. Those who we feel need us, and in turn we need them. You are taken with the current, flowing flowing down that river of life, swept into the rapids of 'true friends'.

Then you hit a rock. And it hurts. It slams you HARD the face. Leaving you stunned, shocked, numb – wondering, was that REALLY what it was? Did I imagine this, or am I sleeping? Then you start wondering, oh so cynically, is there really any 'true' to friends? Is there any 'true' to love? Is there anything that will be the TRUE epitome of what it is deemed to ideally be? You can give your heart, your love, your soul, your very life for someone, and just so fast, you can be cheated of it. How far does this transcendent 'true' extend? In a moment, someone you thought was your own cuts you out of the picture; in a moment, someone you thought understood you for who you were betrays that trust you had endowed in them; in a moment, when your tears flow the hardest they've fallen, you find yourself so so alone. In one moment,you're pulled out of that shroud of societal illusion. Things aren't ever what they seem to be. People aren't what they seem to be. In the end, it all comes down to YOU.

You can't ever truly give your heart completely to anyone, it seems, because no matter what, it will break. The search for someone to always be there for you, with you always – someone to be your 'forever' seems so illusional and impossible a quest. In the end one wonders, who could ever be that soulmate. Will there ever be a soulmate ever, or is this yet another erroneous perception of reality.

When you've given so much, and only need the smallest of comforts in knowing someone is there for you, you find yourself alone; out in the cold with only solitude and the cold winter's wind to dry those tears. When you need that one person most of all, simply to hold onto in silence, you only find yourself hugging yourself. When you dream of dancing in the rain sharing that togetherness, you find yourself alone with the rain hiding those tears. And then you find yourself thinking, what really is a soulmate, that entity that means 'forever' ? That never leaves you no matter what ? .. in some sense you realize maybe you HAVE found your soulmate, and its loneliness itself.

Winter Rapture | Ek Raat

.. the noise of the world starts to fade, and with the noise, goes the light of the sky... the Sun starts it descent into the horizon... sinking into its blankets of fluffy clouds.... scattering streaks of colours in its wake... over the expanse of the sky...a paintbrush gently wafts orange into pink and yet again .. hues of magenta into purple.... finally settling into a cerulean blue...then through the final darkness that descends upon Earth... through the parting clouds...comes the royal and noble Moon...so silently peeking down at the world... 

 ... the still quiet of the night filled only with the falling whispers of snowflakes... the caress of the winds upon the  cheeks of the earth... softened by the light of the benevolent Moon...all the world asleep... but for you, solitude beneath  stars of the heavens... the silence belongs to you alone... the magnificence of that moonlight shines down on you ... for you to look far into the depths of space to the farthest reaches from which those lonely beams of starlight twinkle at you through the twirling white opalescent flakes that dance upon the moonbeams...  kissing your eyelashes before winking out into nonexistence...and yet exist those that twirl away from that fate.. .. each lost dancing under the moonlight.... to then come to rest upon the bosom of mother Earth...

...slowly.. slowly... the sky brightens with the multitude of snowflakes falling from the heavens...the moment where the secrets of the heavens show true.. showing the sun courting the moon to eternity...  full of a mysterious celestial romance... and slowly the moon retreats.. sinking backwards to hide its blush beneath its veil of clouds... the sky glows lighter with a new caress of colour... and then peep the rays of sunshine from the earth's ends...a new birth into the world....shedding light onto the blanket of white that engulfs the world... a splendour of white silence untouched and untainted... and you again step out into that world of isolated bliss ... your breath puffs trailing out into the crisp clean air... and you take the first step out... placing the first footprint into that carpet of crunchy coldness... the moment, that solitude belongs to you alone... and you make your way through that haze of silent enchantment .. seeing the sky brighten so inspiringly... the zenith becomes a clandestine clear bright blue ...  garnished with light wispy white clouds... at the horizon heavy grey clouds swirl in a multitude of emotions... the greatest canvas, the sky.. and the Great Artist wielding His paintbrush....     pouring out from behind those purple gray and blue masses, the golden orange and red streaksss of sunlight... glowing pure against the backdrop of swirling clouds... and out comes the radiant fair one, full of splendour and richly arrayed in its glow .. a full visual symphony... beaming its joy ... rejuvenating... nourishing shadows of light ....and renewal radiates upon the silence ... reaching a crescendo that echoes through and through...

Seeing the light

'Seeing the light' doesn't always make things bright, in fact, can make things even darker.
It can take just a moment, the smallest fraction of a second, a millisecond for it to happen. And when it does, it slaps you awake. Fast and hard.


Dreams are quite lethal in this way. You find a small happiness, a little murmur or whisper of your heartbeat, a spark igniting in your heart, and somehow you end up falling, into little thoughts and dreams. Little by little you find yourself adding more into the dreams and find yourself soaring higher and higher. Eventually you wonder what has happened to yourself. You find yourself smiling all the time, laughing out of the blue, seemingly for no reason, yet you know the reason and keep it to all to yourself. You relish everything in life. You love waking to the new day. The vibrant sunlight, the beauty of God's creation, all set out for you to enjoy and admire. Even the wet soggy weather you find pleasure in. You bask in the showers of the heavens and feel like letting it all run through your hair, down your cheeks. You find yourself standing under the moon's light just dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. You, in the midst of thoughts, find yourself having stopped and standing still in the world of the night, with a quiet content smile. You encounter nights in which you look forward to sinking into the realm of unconciousness, and yet somehow they pass sleeplessly, tossing and turning in a multitude of emotions..happiness.. hope... wonder... curiousity... confusion... restlessness.. until ceasing to think, drifting into that final abode of sleep.


It's what keeps you soaring, soaring, in the world of dreams unfalteringly, and almost carelessly. when just in one moment, on little thing comes racing up at you and suddenly, quite too fast, you find yourself in the reality that dreams are just dreams. And you simply aren't flying anymore, but rather falling, falling into the coldness of reality. So fast, you cant react at first. In a dazed state of shock, you wonder whether it really did happen. But soon it sinks in, and you realize that it wasn't imaginary at all but rather your dreams were.
You wonder, where did you lead yourself astray? where did you go wrong? You doubt yourself, your reason for dreaming. Maybe in dreaming, you soared too high and far from what really was there. What you may have had at one point in time maybe you really had lost later on but were too busy dreaming, blinded, innocent, ignorant. You put faith in your own heart's murmurings, but maybe too much. In some sense you were fooling others, by keeping that secret behind the quiet smile, but ultimately you were fooling yourself, and consequently making a fool of yourself.


But somehow, you're calm about it. It hurts, lots yes, but yet, there's that quiet calmness that takes it all in. Perhaps you always knew this possibility existed. Maybe while soaring the heavens, there was part of you still cautiously treading the realms of reality. And this part of you is what keeps you almost stoicly going.


It hasn't been the first time you've experienced this ongoing battle of appearance versus reality, and the path of yesterday has adequately geared you for the thorns of today. You had once shed tears of sorrow again and again, it abated. Then suddenly you had found yourself silently dropping tears of pure happiness; you now determine that, today on, there will be no tears. The biggest dreams a heart could conjure up would be dismissed, sent away, tearlessly.


But somehow, it doesn't work the way the mind set out. The heart leaks through the barrier of apathy. The same walks, where weeks gone by had shared the scenery of your dreams, now tug at the heartstrings in the sheer darkness of the night. The silence is interrupted by the yet insistent murmurings of the heartbeat. You try to quell it, but in a moment, almost as fast as the moment your heart seemed to break, that moment the light slapped you awake, you break, and vulnerably, under the same watchful moon, cry out the disappointment and hurt. You want to sit right there, amid the swaying of the trees, upon the carpeting grass, and curl up and cry, cry, cry against mother nature's embrace. But you keep walking and subdue the throbbing insistent heartbeat, and let the coldness of coming winter's wind dry the tears before you enter again in the world of people.


Again, comes the question: why bother with dreams when they take you so far from reality? One can live otherwise, without dreams perhaps, but most doubtedly. Dreams are the extension of hope. Dreams colour the canvas with the essence of hope yes, and in a way we know what we wish for. Everything in life is done in hope. We do everything in hopes of something. The student studies with hopes of being a doctor, a teacher. We eat in hopes of reenergizing our bodies, and enjoying the palatte of taste. We walk in hopes of going somewhere, of reaching a final destiny.


Again, while dreams can lead one astray, this doesnt mean one day, they wont come true.It's this faith in a future of the true dreams being fulfilled that should keep us going.
They break, and it hurts when it does. One shouldn't dwell needlessly on what you've lost. The thing about most dreams are that they are only projections of what we desire, in the present or future; in a sense, you never had 'it' to lose it. The framework of dreams is built with a network of expectations. Unfilfilled expectations are the precursors of disappointment. Disappointment hurts and sobres the spirit but in the same way pain works, its these wounds that make the spirit stronger.


A person gone without without these experiences - without pain, disappointment, hurt- is a person much more vulnerable to falling and never getting up again. But the person who has come across these obstacles is the one who learns how best to move past them and go on even stronger.


But never deny yourself the time for emoting what you've gone through. Don't hide the tears, the hurt. Let it seep out of the system in its own healthy time. Every human was given a heart to feel, to love, and a mind to carry out the functions. When you hurt, admit it, you'll get over it faster. Don't have self-pity, rather.. sensible sympathy for yourself.
Dont let yourself fall into depressive moods. Keep yourself busy with activities and quite surprisingly you find the hurt dissipates faster.


If you have a heart, you will feel pain in your life.
And if you feel pain, its because you have a heart.


Maybe again, when you dont expect it, you'll hear that whisper of your heartbeat again, the spark ignited in the heart, and you'll find yourself flying again, in love with life, with a new zest.


And dreams will come seeping, floooding in, and one day, come true.
With a brilliant burst of light.

Becoming a bird, this heart flies
When the destination of a dream is met

Dreams still remain dreams
This is real, when will ours happen?

Wakened eyes go on seeing dreams
When to a heart, someone seems to be its own

If everything we dreamed we got,
That's the end of the dream,
But if we don't get what we dream,
The dream lives on

For some reason, I was thinking of you,
To say so many things, I readied my mouth,

But what is this that I have forgotten words?
Speak the truths quietly like secrets,
Other than you, who else do I have as a soulmate?

Who am I to tell you what has happened?
A struggle takes place inside of me,
My soul does not even realize the truth,
Not a single person knows of this,

When you are standing close to me,
My heart flies so far away,
What is this? Why is this?
When you stand far away from me,
My heart comes and sticks to you,
What is this? Why is this?

Without knowing the musical beat,
My young heart beats beats,
In the ocean that is melody,
It suffers, it suffers, beat by the waves,

As my heart travels down a new path,
As it notices new new things,
Shall I make you understand what I locked inside?
I do not know

[SOLLA MARANTHA KATHAI : ''AITHO UNNA NINACHIRUNTHAEN'']

Sapne

Sapne: dreams.

When do dreams ever become real? When one walks one path, dreams may lead to another, leading one astray..or perhaps not.

We keep walking, hoping that one day, just somewhere around that bend in the road perhaps, or just maybe over that next hill, there it'll be, finally. Sometimes we've worn our feet out, fatigue wearing out the anticipation. We may slow, we may stop. But the road is still there, everyone else is moving ahead. Some takes different roads, some turn, some take the right at the fork while others take the left. When you reach these junctions, the decision is yours. What does your heart tell you?

Sometimes there are others walking with you, sometimes you find yourself trudging along alone. Happiness comes and goes. It is all just temporary. We sometimes find that we linger with certain people longer, enjoying togetherness, laughter, fun. Sometimes one may stumble and fall, you reach out a hand, a shoulder to lean on. Sometimes in turn there are others there ready to support you when you find yourself falling.

There are times when you just want to leave them all. Either run ahead of the crowd, or drop behind. Solitude seems more appealing. Otherwise, you just might feel the urge to throw rocks at them when the temper hits you too strong.

Being alone. You may stroll along, enjoy life, the clouds, the trees, the heavens above, the greatness of God's creation. Or when the rain hits you too hard, when the wind blows cold and fierce, you cry and cry ...tears falling with the raindrops. The pangs of lonliness burn. You wonder if there would ever be anyone, someone, who'd be there for you, someone to call your own, someone to call you theirs. Someone to say they understand, to know when to say the right things, or to just hold you in silence.

Sometimes the path seems so long, you wonder if you've failed. Did you take the wrong turn? Did you leave behind the wrong people? Others seem to know which fruit are the best to pick from the trees, why are the ones you pick always the worst? Who can you ask for help?

At times, you want to turn around and go back. But you can't. The rules won't allow it. What's done is done; you can't go back. Those you left, they're on their own path. Your hope is that somewhere later on, your paths cross again, maybe leading to the final destination.

Faith. That's all that keeps you going. When things are down, you realize, if you yourself won't believe your dreams can come true, what sense is there in walking? Aimlessly, you can reach nowhere. Where you stop ultimately, depends on where you intend to go.

Just remember, go forward. Believing is the key. Dreams may only be dreams..but without them, we have no goal. We'd only be following the currents, letting ourselves just float and drift. When the road seems to long, when the journey seems too harsh, just remember that God put you here for a reason. If you sincerely believe in your dreams, you'll be sure that you'll find the road easier.

And those travelling with you... When you're walking alone, just take a look at who's around you. A smile lightens anyone's burden. When someone shares a smile with you, doesn't the baggage of the heart seem so much lighter? Just take a look, you may have been walking beside your soulmate unwittingly. A heart was made to love. A heart can be broken...so many times, yes...but a heart unused is more of a waste.

Dreams. They hold us up when we feel like we're sinking. They put a glint, a twinkle, a sparkle in the eyes.They make waking up to another day full of light.

Dreams are only dreams.

Our hearts can embroider so many dreams. And yet, dreams can shatter. The road seems too harsh, you blindly, through tears, wander...until you realize that the journey has a way to go, the end is still yet yonder. The sun sets, the sun rises...it may take many days until the heart has healed. The pain may throb, softly yet silently...But memories keep one going. Learn from the past, remember it, the less you shall be doomed to repeat it. Things always happen for reasons. What may seem like hell, may really be a blessing. You can really never tell until you reach your final destiny. Yet just keep going, because dreams come again. Like dreams while asleep. They fly off when the eyes open. You may recall all, some, or none of it...but time comes when new dreams come again....