Home is where the heart is...

"Home", one world that is synonymous to "rest", "peace", "family"...and many more. At the end of a long-tiring day, Home gives the comfort as a warm blanket on a cold-December winter evening. I have never been able to detach to my home back in Roorkee (where I come from). I was in 2nd standard when mom and dad moved in our own home. Before that it was a rented house. Though initially I was reluctant to like it, but mom made it simple for me. I was given lot of area in the new home to roam around/run around. At an age of 8, my new home become my new play ground. I still remember sleeping most of the time on carpet and then my father or my mother helping me to the bed.

There are so many memories associated to my home in Roorkee...from playing cricket on the first floor terrace, to dad's factory on the ground floor. The big black metallic entrance door which always used to creek (yeah the house wasn't completed, we moved in before it got completed). Mom has worked hard, very hard making that place so very cosy, that I can identify each and every thing she has picked to make that place livable.

Two unique things I remember are how in winter we used to sit on the terrace and enjoy the winter-sun. Mom will make hot Carrot-halwa (gajar-ka-halwa) and I will gallop it till my stomach hurts. The other was during summers when we will all get soak-wet in sweat and will all crowd in the AC room (mom-dad's BIG-HUGE room). If the power goes off, it will chit-chat, if the power is on, dad & I fighting for which channel to watch (of course I used to win mostly, unless he is in bad-office-mood).

Time changed, sadly I grew up (though some don't think I have...); moving out of Roorkee was a tough decision, always a mamma's boy. After bewildering in the wild for 8yrs dad finally helped me out to purchase a House in Bangalore. As I studied and grew mentally in Bangalore, it was the right choice to settle down here. Immediately these thoughts of whether an Apartment can ever become my Home. I searched it myself, I saw lot of places, I liked this as soon as I saw it and it surely was one of the biggest decision of my life. It too me few months to make the new place from House - to - home.

Now almost 10months have past and I have more-or-less got used to its surroundings and the utilities. I know it has become my Home. My heart crave for humans-presence in my Home - like when mom-dad came or when bhaiya came. I know my home glows in presence of my family members. I want my didi, my friends and lot of other members to see it.

Surely my heart is confused to find a definition of Home. Because heart also doesn't know which one is really my home...The one which has all my childhood, mischiefs locked away in closets or the one where I rest my soul after a long hours in office (oh I am sort of a work-a-holic).

From a living standard point of view this is an exclusive place with swimming pool (indoor & outdoor), tennis, squash, badminton, snooker and lot of activities always happening. For me it is a walk from my basement B-46 to 4th floor after office, knowing the walls, in absence of humans will warm themselves so I just calmly lie in its arms.

Sadly, in past months one of the moment tarnished the whole experience of living in own Home rather than rented. Miscommunication, Misunderstanding or just plain egos, my cousin and I went separate ways. I had to ask him to leave the place though we shifted together from the rented house where we leaved peacefully together. Sadly the only words I have for the whole episode, "My Dad has worked way too hard and I can't see anyone tarnish his precious possessions".

Anyways, coming back to my Home and in case of the one in Bangalore, it is a blessing my parents has given me. I feel sad leaving the home in Roorkee after each vacation, but now I look forward coming back to this wonderful home, to the view, to my bed and yes my tennis courts (got two of them).

Love you - "HOME, Sweet HOME".

After the breakup...

"Time is the greatest healer", someone either suffered a heartbreak and then recovered to write this line or probably saw too many sad-faces to come up with a line like this. I for sure believe Time is as much as too be blamed for all the pain we recieve as we give it credit for healing.

Hi, I am Rahul and this is my story.

My friends and my enemies together told me (yes I keep in close touch with my enemies) that Time will fix all the stuff. When Anjali questioned my love and to asked me to justify how I will make sure our love doesn't fail under the norms of our society, I cave in. She asked me lot of questions:

- How do we make our living?

- How do we raise our kids?

- How do we move away from our current life and lead a disjoint, lonely life?

& above all

- How do we leave our Parents?

To all I was able to answer in peace that if under our society and its guideline, a inter-religious unison will never be accepted, we better move to higher living standard. We avoid such conversations and we become pillars to support each other through tough time. For the first time we both were happy to be rebels. We both knew, how important each other company was. We knew the answer to one person's problem is the companionship of other.

But with time we realize and may be mature that leaving our Parents is neither in the limit of us - feeble mortals or in our God-send love. God himself created these two entites: Blood-relation and mutual-love. Somehow the human harmony only exists if both go hand-in-hand.

This fateful axe fell on both of us and we found time after breakup far more hard than actually fighting for our relationship, with society, our own notions and lot more. Like an infant always knowing her/his mother will be around, we knew the other is always a call away or may be a day's journey away. We were, as I see right to be named, Orphans-of-Love.

How does one find the foster home? Or actually find parents with same care and same touch (yeah well, touch of a companion can't be expressed in words : still I may try). Anjali's care was wierd in many sense. When she will meet me her hands will go Icy-cold, even in hot-delhi summer. But it still shows the care, isn't it.

We talked once almost after 3 months of separation. She told me tears are not friends which will lighten your heart full of sorrow. They just screw up the eyes and leave dark circles. I said she is stupid and should take care of her health. Even as orphans, we knew the love or the subtle mean of it.

Then almost 6 months passed away and as usual my work became my Gaurdian. Helping me through some rough patches. Everyone hates monday mornings and I became scared of friday evenings. Always sending a puppy-cry to my manager on Friday for more work, to prevent ideal days. Food lost its importance. Music became cries and Lyrics turned to dark corners of the past.

9 month celebration was a blast as one of the her friend finally spilled the beans, she is getting married. For the first time a casual beer drinking washed away thoughts with tower of cans. But still nothing changed, nights means more nightmares, work was comforting, friends were few.

What actually time did to us? Healed us? In what ways, leaving a scare never to be healed again? I fail to see why any one said "Time is the greatest healer". Time is a machine which makes catalog of snapshots of all the good and bad times and never forgets to remind us about the bad times when slightest of wind with thoughts of past pass by.

1yr anniversary is round the corner...I see no reason why I shouldn't go out and celebrate the failure of our love that we console each other to take different path, the breakdown of our system when our education taught us to be secular and our parents denied mere existance of human-being belonging of different religion...

--------------------------

"From the author's diary"

--------------------------

An hour conversation with my friend gave me insight to how human-beings build life surrounding with different rules; bending them to feel comfortable. This is his story or should I say this is his heart. Wanted to say what ever abstract he said.

I also know the girl, I have been touch with her till the point she asked me not to be her friend any more. After all we met through Rahul. I saw her in the Church where she was getting married, I saw her in the white dress and I saw her going away in a car...She was content and I only hope she was/is/will-be happy.

17 Again...& more again...

The movie is nothing but one of those romatic comedies where everything happens brings out a reflexion of our own self. If not all, some part of our life is visible through the eyes of either Mathew Perry or younger version of his (being a guy here).

No matter how many love stories I weave out of my mind or how my tears bleed out of my words, I can't change how love will happen to anyone. I can't define it; I can barely understand it. All I know is that an ability which makes me different from what I could have been. When I walk into a room or a floor of my office I know the feeling of my work is as pure as the words of Ramayan or Bible...similarly when someone looks up to me or I do the same, irrespective of what we are, what we can or can't achieve, we try to find love.

In every walk of my life; the small life I have lived so far; in an ever-changing human being I am, one thing I have never stopped is to learn from love. How love can teach me to hold my niece up close to my heart that she feels the warmth of my lap and fall asleep...How love has taught me to make "her" laugh, where she can be my sister sitting miles away in a foreign land. Or she can be my neighbour in office crackling up on my silly jokes...How love doesn't only describe our feelings but also defines our relationship with another person..

Moving on or sticking with what we have is a choice we all make at some point of life. Some are accepted facts and some are painful dozage of reality. But can any of it take away the feeling and sense of belonging to what really exists in our heart. My heart, skips a beat when I feel-in-love and also when suddenly the car in front of my breaks heavily...cause that is what a heart does...tell us that we are not in the zone where we feel comfortable. It reminds us that the pulse beating so loudly in our ears are not just some biological-fault but a warning of what may come or could have come.

We start and we end our stories search of someone; from birth it is mother and till we age it is a soul-mate - some chosen by fate and some by family. And if the story of soul-mates is true, that our soul breaks away into 7 pieces each piece in search of another piece in next-life the 7th one being left behind...to again break into 7 more piece only to start the search all over again, who am I? One of the first 6? Or the seventh one...Cause I really don't know what I want to be...to be one of the 6 and end our story in this life or to be always the 7th so the search never ends. And what really is this journey of love is...to find a destination and live happily ever after or to know that the journey is the best thing and destination is nothing but a period to our happiness. Isn't it funny, I started solving the mysteries of what love is and can make me feel and yet it confused me more than ever...

Soul-curry = one of the regular column in TOI stating real-life experience of human-beings, some of father-2-daughters, some husband-2-wife. Is shows the endurance of human mind and the ability of our soul to realize when to bleed and when to cry. But above all when to rebuild our lives after it has fallen into pieces. One of my soul-curry moment will be when I realized my father has been far more around that I thought he is...always a business man...because of us. All those long hours and frustration, for us...it all came back to me when during my college days he helped me grown on my own terms. Now I see the same love when my brother is around his daughter. She loves to play with all the teddies she got, but the real teddy is ofcourse my brother (not because of his size, but really because of his habits).

Falling-in-love, a broken heart, shoulder to cry and recovery time...all have gone through that; Being a son or a daughter, becoming buddy or pony-tail sisters, walking around a fire or down the aisle, become a father & carry a child...all have gone through that (or eventually will). As a mortal soul, I wish to feel all forms of love. My greed asks for it & so do I pray for it.

Until I see another of these movies, tinkling my heart...Or till I find another form of love, I sign out...

Happy living...