The Better Half

I often get the feeling that somewhere, deep down, man knows that woman is stronger and dreads the day when his centuries of carefully wrought oppression will crumble before the fury of her rebellion.

I've always been deeply influenced by mythology and now, when I look back on the stories and lore that were imparted to me as a child, I find that Hindu legends and mythology are teeming with symbolic accounts of the doom that has befallen chauvinistic demons and deities when they dared to inflict injustice upon women. When Jagannatha (the form of Vishnu worshipped in Orissa) and his family had the cheek to insult his consort Lakshmi (the spirit of wealth and abundance), they were reduced to the state of mortal paupers, succored only after paying obeisance to her. The demon Mahishasura, who single-handedly vanquished the (male) troops of heaven, was slain effortlessly by the many armed Durga, embodiment of the sacred female energies that percolate the Universe. The quiet but inexorable rage of Draupadi (who is said to have been an incarnation of Kali) brought about the terrible war of the Mahabharata in which nearly an entire race of chauvinists (according to me, the Kauravas) was wiped out.

Moreover, the stories always bring about the inextricable and crucial duality of male and female energies without which Creation cannot exist. Each male deity has a female Shakti, who is sometimes portrayed as his wife and sometimes as a more abstract entity who is the embodiment of his power (for example, Vishnu's Shakti is Mahamaya and Brahma's Shakti is Brahmini). Without his Shakti, the deity is reduced and his role in the funcitioning of the Universe is incomplete. We see the symbolic form of this concept illustrated most powerfully in the story of the creation of Durga. When the Demon Mahishasura obtained the blessing that no male being would be able to defeat him in battle, he effectively gained immunity from the attack of all the Devas (male deities). They were helpless against him and he easily captured and enslaved them. Reduced to the state of beggars, they asked the Trinity (Brahma Vishnu and Mahesh) for help. These great beings (symbolising the three principles of the Universe i.e. creation, preservation and destruction respectively) in spite their tremendous powers, were unable to slay the demon themselves because they were also males. The solution they devised was to pool their Shaktis together, giving rise to the goddess Durga. When she arose, all the assembled deities realised that she was much more than the sum of the Shaktis of the Trinity. She had fused in herself elements of creation, preservation and destruction and was a thus a representative of the Ultimate power that pervades all that is (which is why she is also called Parabrahmaswaroopini). She was recognised as the Mother and the entire gathering bowed before her, including those that had willed her into existence, and offered her the armour, weapons and adornments with which she destroyed the demon hordes and Mahisha himself.

The point is, this story and countless others make it abundantly clear, albeit symbolically, that the feminine power is not a force to be taken seriously and respected. I think this a fact known across cultures, but conscious awareness of this knowledge has been carefully squashed and suppressed by century upon century of carefully orchestrated actions, by means of which a staggeringly large chunk of humanity literally fails to realise or acknowledge the feminine power.
Somewhere along the line, the man of God became a "man of Men"...elevating the social standing of his sex to an exaggerated state that exists even today and shrouding the role and vitality of the female sex in a blanket of inferiority and pathetically circumscribed gender roles.

This has all been done, because men fear the true uncovered power of a woman...it is spoken of in the legends of Kali and Athene, of Draupadi and Laxmibai and it is seen today in the likes of Kiran Bedi, Medha Patkar, Margaret Thacher, Oprah Winfrey and countless others. From female foeticide to the glass ceiling, the world is filled with the social, political and sometimes sadly religious constructs that try to stop women from realising their power. The good news is, according to my beliefs, that we are moving towards a climax where foolishness and generations worth of deceit will be shattered...women will rise, overthrow the dictatorship of ignorant male despots and establish the harmony of the sexes that is needed to redeem humanity...I look forward to that day most expectantly....

Brightness

What do you get when you put the following aspects of a person's life together? :
An inter-community love marriage, adjusting to quaint norms of a new family with courage and in the face of considerable criticism, forsaking personal goals to shift to a new country in order to be with one's spouse (who was working there), setting up a home from nearly scratch, battling the odds of miscarriages and fighting desperately for the life of a preemie baby and gradually bringing up two beautiful sons, becoming aware of a terminal illness at a devastatingly early age, fighting and recovering from it, returning to India with family only to be the victim of emotional abuse by the spouse, being abandoned by the spouse and left to look after the children on most days while he 'takes them on weekends', starting life anew as and making a career for herself in the difficult line of public relations and event management, juggling this with nurturing and bringing up the boys single-handedly and most importantly holding her head high and smiling resolutely through all of the above...

You get my aunt, Gopa.

If you ever get the chance to meet her, you'll know why I've titled this entry so. Her's is the proverbial smile that can light up a room (also, she has a great liking for bright colours, which go well with her pretty face and complexion). Nothing in your interactions will make you aware of the fact that she has emerged victorious from some of the most debilitating trials of life and has reclaimed her power one painful step at a time. She's the kind of person who will make you laugh as freely and as often as she does, she will be more interested in you than most others...and genuinely so.

I still remember the peculiar feeling of numbness that shrouded our family when we first got to know of her cancer...the feelings of helplessness, frustration and fear were overpowering. She was thousands of miles away in some part of the USA, literally without a social support system, with a family to look after and job that she was committed to. The infinite benefits of modern communication simply paled when compared to our instantaneous need to be with her. At that time, nobody had the financial means to rush to the USA on such short notice. For a long time she was left alone to fend off her illness, the side-effects of the treatment, emotional and interpersonal difficulties with her spouse and much more, all by herself. The children were not unaffected by all this either, their tender years being marked inescapably by all these difficulties.

It was with much unpleasantness, mercifully tempered by the strength God lent us, that we got her back to India. One would have thought that with so much family at relatively close range, her problems would soon come to an end. This however, turned out to be a wish that would not be granted. The brief respite was soon interrupted by emotional abuse and infidelity from her spouse followed by his abandoning her, as previously mentioned.

Countless others might have fallen to pieces in her position, but not my aunt Gopa. The pain of a hundred wounds has receded to the level of a dull ache that emerges occasionally and darkens a few hours, but overall, she is the living image of someone who has seized her day. Through all her traumas she has worked to find and establish a network of like-minded people who have acknowledged her strengths and abilities. What is more, her dynamism and will to live have been instrumental in her being offered the role of a partner in a PR firm recently started by her colleagues and her (the firm is literally and all-women team and each of the team members is a strong-willed and intelligent achiever). In her own words, "women need to know that no matter what happens in life you can pick up and make your dreams come true"...and I take the liberty of generalising this to all humanity.

Within a matter of a few months, my aunt has reached a point where she is indispensable to her organisation and now works tirelessly for it. The clients appreciate her professionalism, the subordinates love her pleasant style and her peers value her contributions. And you have only to see her around her children, or to hear her speaking about them to know how much they dote on each other.

So, when I titled this entry "brightness", I decided to salute the indomitable power of the human spirit that my 'Gogu' (my personal nickname for her) personifies...the courage to rise above adversity, to make every effort towards self-healing, to cast aside the fetters of emotional dependence and to simply BE in the moment, love without restraint and laugh like its something she just discovered.

The Lost Sitar

The fact that I never got to see a live performance of the late sitar maesro,Ustad Vilayat Khan (accompanied by Pandit Kishan Maharaj), will probably be an enduring regret for me, accentuated by the fact that I have a VCD recording of "When Time Stood Still", which was probably his last performance in the UK (a SONY and BMG product). The recording itself is so captivating, I am always left with a sense of wonder about what it might have been like to actually sit through one of his live recitals.

In this recording, the old, but hale Ustadji addresses the audience every now and then as he guides their minds and souls through the majestic portals of the late night melody, Raag Darbari Kanada. In his inimitable style he shows them the incredible scope of the Raag and also his indisputably unique finger techniques. Somewhere in these moments, he speaks affectionately to the audience, telling them that he only has a little time left on this earth and asking them to listen attentively to his Sitar because its like will not be heard again. The simple dignity with which he speaks these words never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

The maestro did not speak out of pride...he stated a simple fact, widely endorsed by fellow musicians and connoisseurs of music during his life and also after his demise. His baaj (style of playing the sitar) was a skill developed out of an unbelievably acute, natural sense for music, which was honed by the musical lineage into which he was born. His father and Guru, the late Ustad Enayat Khan, a musical powerhouse in his own right, had drawn the attention of thousands of listeners to the giftedness of his child when in their first ever recording together, he introduced himself as Vilayat's father, so great was the mastery exhibited in the artistry of the young Vilayat Khan.

Ustadji has left behind some talented children and disciples,who do much to uphold his tradition and teachings. However the songs that his Sitar wove each time he held it in his hands, more lovingly than a mother cradles her infant, will not grace this world again...not for a long time to come.

There are so many artistes like Ustadji, who have spent decades in the single-minded pursuit of the spiritual satisfaction that only true music can bestow. For them, music is the highest form of worship...arising as an abstract and melodious prayer from the very core of their beings and winging its way unerringly to the Eternal...Somewhere, Ustad Vilayat Khan is playing his Sitar, his eyes closed in meditation, the characteristically faint but charming smile upon his lips...and The Universe is listening...enchanted...enraptured...

Elvis Has Left the Building...

Our second goldfish, Elvis, breathed his last, sometime last night...almost exactly two months after Presley left us...

This time, I was better prepared...Presley's demise had been a painful experience, but it had acquainted me most succinctly with the phenomenon of death. Over the last few days, Elvis's behaviour had displayed all the markers that indicated that he would soon be leaving his body behind and I had been able to take myself through the process of anticipatory grief. This helped quite a bit, but nevertheless, a part of me is aching and wishing that I had just a few more days to try and help Elvis. Yesterday, two fluid filled sacs appeared on his head, almost like tumors of some kind. I was alarmed when my sister noticed them...there had been some black markings before, but we were not able to tell what they meant...we had even changed the water in his bowl and medicated it only a couple of days ago. What is more, the hungry lil' fella had stopped eating entirely and spent all his time hiding at the bottom of the bowl. We remembered that these were the signs Presley had shown prior to his death and somehow started preparing for the worst. Nevertheless, I went online and looked for possible diagnoses and cures...finding nothing matching the exact symptoms. There was something about feeding the ailing fish some chopped, skinless peas and I had determined to try this as a last resort, this morning, but by the time I woke up, our helper had already found the lifeless body and buried it with my father's permission...

I think they did a good thing, by not letting me see the body. I'm not really squeamish about such things but I guess it would really have been disconcerting to see Elvis's carcass, just when I had plans to try and treat him. Seeing the large flower pot in which he had been buried, was a quick and abrupt way of making me realise the finality of the situation. There was no use in thinking about what could have been done...Elvis had left and was not about to return...

To mark his passing, all I did was stick some burning incense into the mud that held his little body and say a silent prayer, asking for his spirit to make its way quickly and comfortably into it's next life and body. As I stood there, eyes closed and hands folded, a beautiful sensation closed over me, and I felt that somehow he had heard my prayers. I felt a like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and a gentle tingling sensation spread over my torso and arms. It's difficult to describe how it worked, but in that moment, I just knew that he had moved on and what was under the freshly turned earth in which the incense rapidly burnt its way down to the stub, was at best a transient and feeble reminder of the lively being that had graced my home for over a year. The Elvis that I missed will always be a part of my memories...a flash of orange in a large bowl of water, brighter than the coloured rocks...

Little Girl

Late this morning, I decided to overcome the laziness that inevitably creeps in when one is in the vacation mode, with late nights, later mornings, wonky meal timings and marathon TV sessions. Giving myself a mental slap on the back, I finished my morning session of breathing exercises and made my way to the pool...for someone who hates perspiring as much as I do, swimming is by far the most preferred way of burning some calories.

The apartment complex in which I live, has the luxury of a beautiful swimming pool, not very deep (sadly), but not too shallow either. It has beautiful tiles in three shades of blue, interspersed with white. In summer the water is always pleasant and in winter (if you can call it that in Mumbai!) it's delightfully cold. When I'm in it, I just don't know where the time goes.

This morning, when I emerged from the changing room, I was mildly surprised to find the waters disturbed and another swimmer in the pool (you see, I usually try to ensure that I swim at such a time, when I am most likely to have the pool all to myself...somehow, I treat this shared property as a personal estate!). Moreover, there were all kinds of things in the water; two hideous and garishly coloured plastic fish, a brightly painted ball of some kind, peculiar flat plastic discs of some sort...all bobbing about in sharp contrast to hues of the pool, which fought most desperately to maintain some semblance of their dignity (and failed most miserably, I might add!).

My eyes quickly sought the owner of the little things and found the culprit buoyed by armbands, in the far end of the pool, boldly appraising me as I lowered myself into the same. It was a little girl, her skin browned by the sun, dark hair cut to shoulder length and held up with little clips. The moment I was in the water and about to kick away from the wall she hailed me in a voice that belied her petite form. She called me "Uncle" (a term to which I have a particular objection)...I much prefer "bhaiya" (older brother) when addressed by children; but nevermind that now! Isn't there something wonderful about the way in which a child will reach out to you, completely unabashed, guileless and genuine? I wonder when (and why) most of us stopped being like that...

Despite my dissatisfaction with the condition of the pool, I was unable to ignore this child...just as I can never ignore any child who speaks to me. I've loved babies ever since my first cousin Amu was born (I was only eight years old at the time) and I was allowed to help with looking after her. As more and more adorable cousins were added to the swelling ranks of my grandparents' grandchildren, I got the chance of looking after more babies and watching the older ones grow into children. My love for children, pretty much comes from those experiences...as the oldest of the cousins I still get to look after them, fuss over them, play ridiculous games, even be a little bossy every now and then. Somehow, this attitude has
generalised to my interactions most children, regardless of whether their caregivers are around!

So, when this little girl imperiously asked me to play with her, I had no choice but to oblige her. I spent the next half hour or so doing my laps but also pausing every now and then to reply to her loud, excited questions and demands. During this time, I managed to discover her name, introduced myself and found out that she was six years old and studied in a school called "nursery" (lol!). I helped her gather the floating toys when they moved beyond her reach, dived to bring up the ones that sank and finally gave her a few lessons in using her arms and legs more effectively in the water. That quickly tired her; she announced that she had had enough and that her legs were weary. Her bemused nanny was hovering around the edges of the pool all along, no doubt a little befuddled to find a stranger holding a pleasant conversation with her her excitable little ward. I took the opportunity to hand the child over, said my goodbye and promised to meet up later, upon which she informed me that the next time we met she would like me to jump into the deepest end of the pool along with her...

The Smell of Mushrooms

I'm often told that I cook pretty well...and I make it a personal policy to believe those that compliment me on my culinary skills! :) I attribute all my proficiency in the kitchen to my mother, who has never regarded cooking as the exclusive realm of the Woman or as a daily act of necessity. In our family, we think of cooking as therapeutic...it's one of the ways in which we destress. For us, creating something that the we and the rest of the family will eat, is always an act of love and usually involves a fair amount of imagination and risk-taking. I often tell my mother that we can never eat the same thing twice in our home because we just cannot resist trying out some modifications to the dish the next time we prepare it!

We've moved homes many times in the past, and one of the most important criteria in selecting a new place to rent was that the kitchen must be large enough to accommodate at least three people, no matter if the other rooms are a bit on the smaller side. This is because you will seldom find one of us cooking alone in the kitchen (unless the others have something really important to do, are away from the house, or are too tired). While one cooks, the other(s) washes up, cleans the counters or helps in getting the ingredients ready for the next dish that must be prepared. Another might just sit at a little table or on one of the counters. Throughout this process we almost never stop chatting. Just about everything comes up in our conversation...ranging from idle gossip to vedic philosophy. It's an important time for us because we bond in those interactions...we share views, experiences, ideas and most importantly our love for one another. Somewhere, somehow, I think all of the above find their way into the food and when it is served, it is more than just a bunch of ingredients that were put together...it is the manifest end-product of a complex and enriching process that we shared in one of our favourite places! :)

Cooking for people you love is one of the best experiences...I don't know if this is a cliche, but I always find that the food tastes a lot better when I'm making it, keeping in mind the contentment and appreciation that it will receive from those I care about.

Here's a little recipe I made up after watching "Oliver's Twist" on Zee English. I mixed Jamie Oliver's recipe with some old tricks we use in our cooking. All this kitchen talk made me want to share it with you. Try it out if you get the time and let me know about your experience...

You will need:
a packet of button mushrooms...try and get fairly large ones...clean them thoroughly, please.
2-3 large onions, minced
2-3 large cloves of garlic, minced
some finely chopped bell peppers: red and yellow
2 tablespoons of butter (leave it out for a while so it softens considerably)
some finely chopped coriander leaves
oregano if you have it.
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil.
salt
soy sauce: 2-3 tsp.
ketchup: 3-4 tsp.
a nice flat (preferably non-stick) pan with raised sides and a cover.

Here's what you need to do:

Take the button mushrooms and carefully pull out the stalks, so that you are left with the hollow, round mushroom heads. Keep the heads separately. Chop up the stalks finely and keep aside.

Mix the chopped coriander leaves and oregano with the butter. Once you get a nice, smooth mixture, take a small spoon and fill this mixture into the mushroom heads. Keep aside. (You can substitute the butter with finely grated cheese, that will melt easily or with fresh, grated paneer).

In the pan, heat the olive oil for just about a minute or so on a medium flame. Add the garlic and wait until it is golden brown. Add the onions and fry them until they too are slightly golden brown. Now add the minced mushroom stems and cook them along with the onions. A nice mushroomy smell should fill your kitchen at this point. The mixture will take on a uniform, light brown colour (no problem if its dark!). Add the chopped bell peppers and stir them into mixture very slightly...we don't want to spend too much time cooking these. Spread the mixture evenly on the surface of the pan.

Now quickly mix the soy sauce and ketchup with a little water (4 tbsp) and add this to the pan. Steam will start rising in a few moments

One by one, pick up the mushroom heads and place them in the pan with their flat sides on the mixture and their hollow, butter-filled mouths looking up at you. Once they have all been placed in the pan, cover the pan. Let it remain like this for about 2-3 minutes and then lower the flame to its minimum capacity. Let it remain for another 5 minutes before lifting the lid and testing the sides of the mixture to make sure that it it not sticking to the pan, if this is the case, add a little more water carefully from the sides but don't displace the mushroom heads.

You'll know the dish is ready when you find that the mushroom heads are looking slightly browned from the outside and have shrunk a little.

Use a flat spoon or spatula to remove each mushroom head so that it comes out of the pan on its own little bed of mixture. Ease the servings carefully onto the plates off of which they will be eaten and serve with lightly toasted, wholewheat bread (No butter on the toast, please! There's enough in the mushroom heads!) and hot mashed potatoes (I will not insult your intelligence by telling you how to make that)!

YUM's the word!

Cheers!

Dance

This thought struck me while I was travelling in an auto rickshaw, juggling a strong irritation response to the heat and the noise, with the uncomfortable sensation of my innards being shaken by a vehicle that probably missed the invention of shock-absorbers.

An automatic defense mechanism that my mind employs when I try to keep my calm, while travelling in public transport , is to bring up a tune or memory of some musical item (inevitably drawn from Classical Music) that I have heard in the past, and play it repeatedly! It usually works wonders for me as I soon become blissfully unaware of most of the unpleasant sounds, sights and (oh my god!) smells that inevitably impinge upon one's senses in a local train, bus or auto rickshaw.

The thought that came to me today (while I played Pandit Kishan Maharaj's tabla wizardry in my mental tape recorder), was about melody and rhythm, the two broad spheres into which I divide any music. All of a sudden received the mental picture of a man performing a wonderfully measured and intricate series of movements...(almost like Tai Chi raised to the power 5!) and while he moved, a golden energy swirled all around him. It moved to create a dynamic and yet harmonious pattern, but did not move exactly with him. At key points the movements of the man and the energy touched each other, but often the golden light made many pirouettes, spirals etc, that almost threatened to diverge from the movement of the man. Still, these were so beautifully made that they always returned to add grace and beauty to the dance that the man wove ceaselessly.

To me, the man symbolised taala, the rhythmic cycles or beat-patterns that a classical musician sings or plays to. The golden energy was swara or melody. Taala moves in intricate ways to try and provide structure and form to music, while Swara weaves intricate and almost divergent patterns within the laws of Taala. Together they create Naada (cosmic sound) which is what enervates Indian Classical Music with its spiritual force. Both Swara and Taala can exist in isolation, but they make more sense and enrich one another when the come together. This is the dance of Shiva, the Eternal Musician...he who rolls out the infinite taalas on his damaru and in response to whose song the universe unfolds all creation...

Beautiful

This morning I found myself being interviewed on various aspects of my academic, social, professional and personal life and aspirations by some senior members of a firm that I had applied to. A little something happened during the course of that session and I decided to share it with you.

One of the interviewers asked me about my hobbies and interests, and one of the first responses I made was about my passion for creative writing, which automatically led to LifeStrings. When I spelt the name of the blog, they asked me to explain the reasons for the choice of this name. I explained the metaphor of the stringed instrument (which you will find in the first article of the November posts) and ended by saying that my friends, my family, my subject, and a myriad other facets of my life are like strings on this instrument...and when they are played in harmony, my life is beautiful...and in the moment I spoke those words, a wave broke over me...I thought...WOW! My life is BEAUTIFUL!

In that very moment, I saw with great clarity the boundless blessings that the Universe has showered on me. I felt so much love for all the wonderful people I've known and continue to be associated with, the experiences that have changed me, my schools, my college, the fact that I have music and art in my life, this world and its wonders...I could just go on and on...to be honest it was quite overwhelming and if my mind had not been distracted by the next question, I'm pretty certain they would have seen tears in my eyes.

How strange that such a brief vocalization led to the liberation of so much energy! Could it be that I'm not usually aware of or thankful for these things? Not really, comes the answer from within. I'm always thankful for the bounties that have been heaped on me and the blessings that continue to come my way. However, I don't often speak to others about it...when I uttered those words, a light bulb (no, make that a beacon!) came on within my mind and just blazed with the meaning that those words have for me. Just about everything looked brighter, including the rather dimly lit room in which we were sitting...And when I left the office, there was a spring in my step that added a couples of units of speed to my normally brisk walk! :)

My life is beautiful...I pray that your life is beautiful too. Maybe reading this entry will make you think along the same lines. My most earnest suggestion to you is to say it aloud....whisper it into the night before you fall asleep...affirm it in the deepest recesses of your soul. God bless!

There Are No Pockets in the Grave

To mark the passing of Naushad-saab, one of the oldest and most talented music composers that India has ever known, the RKB show on the Sahara news channel featured Tabassum, a famous TV personality and the perfect picture of a woman who has aged with the utmost finesse and dignity. In her inimitable style, this glorious lady cited numerous anecdotes on the kind of role that the departed had played in her life and on the quality of their interactions. What struck me as particularly beautiful was the spontaneity with which she recited numerous "shers" (short couplets in Urdu that are composed so as to communicate entire volumes of meaning in concise, poetic bundles) as different ideas came to her mind.

One of these little marvels, has etched itself firmly in my mind. I will not attempt to rewrite the same using English letters, because that will probably kill the aesthetic appeal of the piece, but I will be so bold as to attempt an interpretation. Tabassum's sher was dedicated to all those who spend their lifetimes hoarding wealth and guarding their hoards jealously and it simply meant:

"Earn lots of money, diamonds and pearls,
But remember, there is no pocket in the grave"

My crude and quite literal interpretation does little justice to the exquisite format of the original Urdu composition, but it does highlight the essential meaning. Wealth and material possessions that are amassed for their own sake and to slake the ever increasing thirst of the hoarder will be useless when death comes calling. At the point of death, all the riches of the world are meaningless and will not accompany the body to its final resting place (If you're the foolishly argumentative kind - the way I can sometimes be myself - you might wonder why the ancient Egyptians, in all their wisdom buried their dead with most of their material possessions...but we'll leave that for another discussion!). Wealth that is not shared or put to productive use while the owner of that wealth is alive, is useless and in fact harmful in that it captures the mind of the owner...soon making him/her the "owned"...I won't go much further into this concept, because I wrote about it in "The Folly of a Diamond", a few months ago. I hope you relate to it!

The Bangalore blogs : 5 : Trying to Let Go...

When you find yourself at a point where you have to part ways with an environment that is comforting, caring and supportive and must leave people who have showered you with love, it really is a herculean effort to let go....one that I am having to exert even as I type these words.

Separation from people who are important to me, has always been a difficult task. When I left home, 10 days ago, to come to Bangalore, I felt not only the thrill of meeting my friends here, but also the small pangs of leaving my family for the duration of my vacation. "Home is where the heart is", they say...for me, home is even more; it is a shrine of love and nurturance, a centre of energy where one may recuperate from any troubles that befall him/her. It is not surprising therefore, that now, when it is time to return to my family, I feel the excitement of meeting my parents and sister once again, but also feel a stab of pain when I think of leaving my friends in Bangalore, in whose presence, I felt a comfort exactly like the one I feel in my family. How quickly the heart forges bonds!

It occurs to me, at this point, that almost every successful relationship, must involve friendship in order to be positive and enriching. Even in our relationships with our family members, if we cannot love them as friends, we cannot love them as family. We must be able to love each other in the unconditional manner of true friendship before we can love each other as more than friends. When friendship is carried into relationships of a more personal nature, such as marriage, it enriches those relationships immeasurably. I'm incredibly grateful for the fact that I can speak to my parents as I would speak to my friends and can share jokes and experiences with them in much the same way.

Friendship and the other relationships that it accentuates, must never be taken for granted, although it is very difficult to avoid this as one becomes increasingly comfortable with a loved person. Sometimes we might find that we take for granted the ones who are most important and close to us. In these situations, we may often neglect the small, seemingly inconsequential little gestures that make our relationships infinitely meaningful. We may forget to express our appreciation for the small but important things that others do for us routinely or even neglect to think that expressing such appreciation is important. This happens almost inevitably in all relationships...what is important for us is to be able to pinch ourselves every now and then and rejuvenate our bonds with the people we love, not necessarily with something stupendous, but with the little surprises and tokens of affection that speak volumes even if they are as fleeting as a smile.

Let me end by quoting a few lines from a beautiful poem - one of my favourites - from e.e. cummings ("I Carry your Heart With Me), who has expressed, with surpassing elegance, the way in which no force on earth can sunder people who are bound by unconditional love for one another:

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"

God Bless!

The Bangalore blogs : 4 : Can There Ever be Too Much of a Good Thing?

I was tempted to think on this topic when I was musing (no, change that to FUMING) on the temperature of Bangalore city. The place is simply intolerable right now. I was always told that the city was known for its pleasant, warm weather and cool evenings. However, I would dearly like to smack those informants rather smartly on the wrist and then subjugate them to the blistering conditions that exist here! Warmth is a good thing, but when it changes to a condition which, within a matter of a few outdoor hours, will certainly qualify you for being the ideal candidate for the before picture of a new sunblock cream, it's a bit much really!

Having raved and ranted about the heat (which always makes me feel a littler better!), however, I'd like to speak about love, in the context of the title of this blog...(if you think that was abrupt, my apologies...but that's how I function sometimes!).

The way I see it, love can assume many forms...it can be conditional or unconditional, platonic or romantic, momentary or relatively permanent. Love is essential for people to develop physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. When love is denied to a being, its development and its ways of expressing or seeking love are distorted.

Can there ever be such a phenomenon as 'too much love'? To my mind, the answer is that when unconditional, love can never be excessive, because excess implies negativity and unconditional love is beyond the human assessments of positive and negative. When love is conditional, however, the picture changes completely.

Conditional love is love based on how a the loved one is able to meet the needs of the one giving love (A question that comes to mind at this point is whether conditional love is even fit to be called "love", but I will desist from going further in this direction because no alternative presents itself readily to my musings). When it is so, such emotion is automatically tied to dependence and possessiveness, both of which can easily be in excess and can therefore be potentially harmful.

My observations of people who profess to be in a loving relationship, romantic or otherwise, lead me to believe that excessive conditionality in love is easily apparent when the people in that relationship are able to influence each other's core happiness by means of overt as well as covert communications. What I mean by core happiness, is an inner reserve or power, potent, efficacy and peace that each individual has within himself/herself. This is a power that remains within us regardless of what happens outside. It is a formidable force that may be channelled for infinite purposes, but can be suppressed and concealed by the fallibilities and weaknesses of human patterns of dependence on others.

The way I see it, if something a partner does or does not do is almost always a defining feature in eliciting the other partner's joys or tears, there is something dysfunctional in that relationship. We are definitely affected by each other's thoughts and actions, but are we ready for another's thoughts and actions to control the innermost sense of stability and peace that we have? Have we allowed our partners (knowingly or unknowingly) to gain control over this most sacred and vital aspect of ourselves? If the answer to these questions are yes, then we might be well advised to consider whether it is love or emotional dependence that we feel. We are at once defined by our relationships and also much more than those definitions. Understanding this is the key to being secure within ourselves and being able to love unconditionally.

The answer to my self imposed question, when applied to love appears to be so: No, there is no such thing as too much love, if it is true, unconditional love that we feel and experience. Love of practically all other kinds, is potentially in danger of being excessive and we have to work actively to keep ourselves from declining into such a condition.