Shh...Privacy Please

Have been thinking a long time about this. About time I gave my version of the story. Come out clean. Wash my hands of this matter once and for all....hopefully

For as long as I can remember, friends and foes alike have sometimes accused, sometimes suggested to me that I am a closed person. That I don't share my feelings. AT ALL. I have often wondered how much of that is true. And I guess the answer is that most of it is.

Growing up, somehow I had this in my mind that one is not supposed to share the family stuff with others. That used to be the most personal stuff during childhood anyway. Don't get me wrong. I come from a happy home. There were not many dark family secrets that I could have told anybody. Nothing juicy enough or tragic enough that it can become a conversation matter amongst friends.

Somewhere along the way, that trait got so ingrained in me that sharing personal stuff just made me plain uncomfortable. I always take pride in putting a happy face for the world. How can I tell the world that my closet had a few shelves full of dark stuff.

Going from school to college, I started hearing this accusation more and more often. My friends will request me to tell them what I felt. They will threaten that I won't hear any personal stuff from them either. They will counsel me that it is wrong to keep the feelings bottled in. They will make fun of me. But I didn't wilt under peer pressure. It did get me thinking though. They are my friends after all. What harm could possibly be done by telling them what I feel? Hell, while in school, they didn't even know the girls that I will have a crush on. That's how private a person i was.

I decided I will change. I will try and open up ever so slowly. I did. With disastrous consequences ofcourse. Looking back at it, I guess what my friends did was not to hurt me voluntarily. It was done inadvertently. They just happened to mention things that I had told them in confidence. It just affected me deeply. No one person or one incident. Almost all of them did. It HURT!! It shouldn't have, but it did. And I decided that I will clam up. FOR LIFE!

Almost a decade later, I do realize that it was all silly stuff. But the habit was so ingrained in me that it is impossible to do otherwise. All the years I spent from home by myself just cemented that trait. During all those years, I decided to be my own best friend. I lacked the imagination to make imaginary friends anyway, so I decided that I will give me company. I will understand myself. I have always been an introvert. Being a clam just followed.

So, to all the people in my life who have had this complaint, please don't misunderstand me. It is not that I don't trust you. Anybody will be lucky to find people like you. I am damn lucky to have found all of you in one lifetime. This is just how I am. This is a part of being me. I thought that is the unwritten code of friendships...you accept your friends as they are. You become friends with them because of who they are. Can I expect the same from you???

Booo

Was gone a long time but I am back now. Gave up writing last time 'coz I think it seemed too forced, too unoriginal.

But the cogwheels in the brain seldom stop whirring. The heart still has it's reasons. And the fingers do obey them. They merrily go tap-tapping on this keyboard.

A note though. This time my words will be for moi and not with the intention of making it a great read. Heard this somewhere:

If I am who I am because of who I am then I am who I am
If I am who I am beacuse of who you are then I am not who I am.

Makes sense???

And then there were none...

I have been thinking about this... This will be my last post on this blog. No, it is not a break. It is goodbye. Hasta la vista baby. It was good while it lasted but then good things can last only for so long.

Surprisingly, it was not a hard decision at all. In fact it was a very easy one. The answer was there all along, I was just not searching in the right place.

I realized I was not writing from my heart anymore. Deep down, I knew people were reading this. My mind took over, I started writing for the readers. Some known, some unknown. I became concious of what I was writing. After all, it wasn't only for me anymore. I was striving to satisfy the hungry eyes falling on my blog. In the distant past, my words, my thoughts were my own. Now they are everybody else's as well. I have been a very private person all my life. This blog made me feel like a mannequin being undressed in the store window.

Despair not ye, I might still write. I might still blog again. I might still write a book one day. Or none of the above. For heart is a fickle thing. It can be transplanted. And the hands on the clock do go round only to come back to where they started from.

You

You know who you are and saying thank you would be too trite, too disrespectful, let me just say that you honored humanity's highest creed ever. Gratitude is not strong enough of a word to describe what I feel. Favors such as this can never be returned – it demeans the act, so generous, so grand, so unselfish.

If somebody up there is keeping an account, I will gladly vouch for the accuracy of yours. I wish you good things, only good things.

Trial and error

I tried. Tried a few times. Didn't have the courage to re-live the moments. I knew all along that it will be tough, but I couldn't even imagine that it was going to be so hard on me. I tried to write about what happened but couldn't.

The throat keeps choking, there is a burning sensation in the nose and the eyes just get misty. Whenever I started writing, I had to stop soon becuase my vision was blurred by those tears streaming down my cheek. I have decided that I don't want to write down what I went through. I don't want to transcribe what I still have nigthmares about. This shall forever remain locked in the deepest darkest dungeons of my memories, with the faint hope that time will make me misplace the keys or atleast forget the way through the maze leading to it.

I am not even sure if my rudimentary knowledge of the language gives me the depth and the breadth to describe the emotions that I felt. No language in the world can do justice to the feelings. Feelings are meant to be felt not read about.

Human emotions are such a fickle thing. The more you want to forget, the more it keeps coming back to haunt you. I will write a piece (instead of the three I promised) about my long absence. My way of expressing my gratitude to the one who gave me my words. Not sure when I will write it, not sure if it will be my very next piece. But it is out there....as soon as I get the strength to hold back these tears.

Explanations and Excuses

I know I have been away for way too long now. So much has happened in the intervening time and I have so much to say that I am not sure all will fit in one blog. I think I will break it into three pieces. I have been trying to put off writing all this(Besides the fact that I was genuinely busy).

Words are tripping over each other waiting to get out, a jumbled mess is what they has become. The words are shouting, each one louder than the one before in an effort to be heard. But these are the words that I wish I didn't even have to think, much less write. It pains my heart to realize that what I have feared most in the last few years, has come true. But even in my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine that the reality will be so much harder...

The heart has it's reasons

Read this a long time ago...Very mean, very devious...but so...from the heart.

If you broke my heart into a thousand pieces,
I wouldn't take the time to pick them up,
instead, I would leave them there,
hoping that one day,
you will pass by and cut your foot.

Oh Life

Life offers you tickets to places you never thought you wanted to go anyway, and THEN it makes you pay the fare...

Say What!

Sometimes, it amazes me to think how some smudges of ink on a piece of paper can convey the myriad feelings. How is it that the smudges take the form of characters, characters form words, words form sentences and sentences give meaning to a thought. How is it that the shapeless, formless thought that is floating around in your mind suddenly seems so meaningful, so alive to those who can decipher those smudges.

But the words don't always need the crutches of a language. How else will you explain the communication between people and their pets. Communication that is totally lacking a common language but not really missing it. Why is it then that when two people want to coommunicate, they need a common language. Or sometimes, even when they have a common language, they fail to communicate with each other.

I have always maintained that words are not my friends. But the fact is that words are my beloved friend and my dreaded foe. Words have got me into some tough spots and got me out of lots of others. Words have betrayed me at the worst possible moment and words have been my lifeline. Words have been my confidante and my Brutus. Somehow, I am always wary of trusting the words that roll off my tongue or the ones that emrge out of my pen.

Yawn!!

Just too lazy to post these days.

Somehow, whenever the thoughts that I want to write, come to my mind, I am not near a computer. When I am near a computer, the thoughts refuse to even be anywhere near my brain.

So much to say, no language to say it in...