Resolutions Are Meant To Be Broken. Are They.

We all make New Year resolutions. To improve ourselves, our surroundings. Begin with a bang, slow down mid way and probably by year end just laugh over how resolutions are meant to be broken. January's promises become December's jokes over New Year Eve's dinners. Of course, it's enjoyable. We laugh on ourselves - about how we resolved to wake up early and do yoga, complete the pending treatment at the Dentist, learn driving, be more honest, spend more time with the family, quit smoking or reduce procrastincation.

But what if we ditched the New Year's time to make such promises to ourselves. No, this isn't a self help post that will awaken your you from the shackles of your grey existence and bounce back ! Or maybe it will. It's only a thought that struck me when I reminisced over the resolutions I made and achieved, half baked. Yeah, so why choose New Year's to make resolutions. What's up with New Year's? Just because you begin the year are you bound to load it with self uplifiting moral promises. You have the whole year for it, man. Or is it the air of resolutions and promises that float around you on New Year's Eve, where there is a whole range of resolutions to choose from. Your best friend's or boyfriend/girlfriend's list. So many options, is it? 

Well, I have been noticing this for two years now and have realized the futility of making New Year's resolutions. Not because they don't survive. But because when I'm celebrating and partying, who cares about waking up early for yoga, going to the Dentist for root canal, or improving my driving and so on. (I don't smoke, so that's one respite from resolutions already.) I will make a resolution when I want to. I don't feel like making it public; or maybe those self improving tips don't hit my mind when I'm partying. And since I won't make my resolutions on a December-January cusp, there won't be an obligation to fulfil and guilt to ignore them. Maybe one made some where between the year, will work better for me.

PS: Also, I read Robin Sharma say somewhere, that it takes any person about 30 days to get used to a new habit. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari wasn't the most intriguing book I read, though. Just saying. I'm trusting you with this one, Robin ! 

How We Spent Our Days.

I had a girl in my neighbourhood once. We lived adjacent to each other. We also went to the same school, in the same school bus. Each afternoon we returned home together, and in the evening went out to ride our respective bicycles together. Nothing was surprising in that occuring.

We were friends, but we weren't too fond of us each other. In fact on several occassions I would come home and complain to my mom about how she tried to act smarter, or cheated in games, or stole my hairclips in the school bus. And each time, mom would diligently calm my juvenile worries. She probably did the same to her mom, when she fell down the bicycle and I rode ahead, instead of helping her get up. We often played these petty wicked revenge games with each other.

And then one day I came to know that she was shifting from the neighbourhood. Her dad had been transferred to another city. She was to leave in a week's time. Each day that week, we would be trucks being loaded with packed belongings. The house was bustling with shifting activities; the door was mostly open, with boys rushing in and out carrying carton boxes and what not.

She barely came out to play in that week. Her bicycle had been transported along with other belongings. One day, when I knew she wasn't at home, I peeped in through the rot iron door- the house was vacant. All belongings had been shifted, except ones of bare necessity. The slightest of voice would echo in such a house. That afternoon I realised, how much I was fond of her. I was missing her already. Thinking of how she wouldn't be accompanying me in the school bus now, or ride along on the bicycle in evenings almost made me cry. She was my closest friend. We fought each day, only to meet again next morning and go to school together.

I went home. And no matter how clichéd it might sound now, made a card for her. I even scribbled something that probably was an emotional outburst. Went to her place in the evening and gave it. She was happy to receive it. Her mom fed us with biscuits.

Funnily, neither of us felt the awkwardness of how we disliked each other, in absence of the other. While together, we were normal. As if nothing had happened. Probably nobody thinks of awkwardness or discomfort at that age. Emotional outbursts are momentary. We get over things faster. She went away. We grew up. Though we hardly kept in touch on a regular basis, I heard about her family occassionally from my parents.

And each time I thought of her, I smiled at the sheer simplicity of our childhood.

Because one rainy afternoon, with no particular reason, Love beckoned. Dramatic, eh.

When.

Once in a while, when I ran out of thoughts.

When you ran into love.
When we explored dreams that lay with-in and with-out.
When cold winter showers chilled our bones, and we craved for the fireplace.
When I wrote like you once did. When I write like you were talking.
When you taught me to dream the dream. And the dream danced in my head all this while.
When we sneaked through mental escapdes.
When you spoke and I blabbered.
When I fancied chilled strawberry shakes and vanilla cupcakes.
When we lay under stars that seemed yellow with dust.
When iced lemonade soothed the scorch of the sun.
When I stole mom's pearl trinkets for the party. When you smiled at my supposed cleverness.
When we talked wise till the sun arose.
When you let me play pranks on you only to laugh about them later.
When you bitched about the girl who left you.When you warned me to not be fooled by love.
When we laughed at how bad we fared during math exams.
When you wore bright checks shirts and denims for the Sunday brunch.
When I stole caramel crunchies from your travel bags.
When I told you about previous night's dream.
When only I knew where you were hiding.

When I ran out of thoughts. 

What The Sea Brought.

There must be a beach-post. After a beach holiday there must be a beach post.

With so much food and rain and water and people. With shorter clothes and cooler breeze. With coconut and goan curry. With shacks and tiny colourful bottle. With beer and alcohol all over (no takers for it, sadly.) With chatter and laughter and ghost stories in the night. With sea shells and para gliding and salt water filling up right though your lungs.

The beach will always have a special place in my heart. A beach wedding would be dreamy and rather cinematic. A beach house would solve all holiday qualms. Water coming in, going out. Endlessly. White foam gathering on the sandy shores bringing tiny broken shells. Empty bottles and broken sand castles. Beach lovers. Walking hand in hand. Laughing to each other.

The sea never slept. It swayed tirelessly each night. Playing with the winds, battling with ships and cargos. It cradled little boats who thrived in to catch some fish for the night meals. It ran deep down to the core of the earth, still brimming with life.

Its fondness would never die. It would only grow deeper. For it's eternal. Its existence, ethereal.

For Days We Spent With Clarissa.

For bamboo room, winter afternoons, coffee and Post-War London. And the sheer love.

"Peter would think her sentimental. So she was. For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying – what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt"
- Clarissa Dalloway.

The Yellow Chair

It was sunset. Perfect for a writer's tale to commence. Perfect for an artist's canvas to illustrate. Perfect for poems rhymes and lullabies. There was calm in the chirping of birds, mild motion in the river stirring by. The world was at bay, peaceful in its routine. To retire after the toil. Submerge in sleep.

And there stayed, the brown golden cottage, outlived by a inhabitants for decades now. Rustic yet strong. Laden with canes and beams that held it up. Its drooping shelter bowed by benign canopies of trees, old hay that glossed during noon. It was perfect in its existence. Neither too small for a crowd, nor too big for the lonesome. It was welcoming, comforting and warm by the fire that burned all night. It smelled of vegetable stock and spices that brewed in the kitchen, a blessing on rainy evenings. 

But there was something that made the cottage even more special than it could possibly be. It was the existence of that yellow chair. 

The yellow chair. Neither too bright, nor too haggard, but yellow. Wooden, sturdy. It rocked if you cared to rock it. It comforted if you sat. It lulled to sleep if you stretched your arms and let loose yourself. The yellow-ness of it emitted radiance, charm that felt pernnial. It made one feel a sense of never dying belongingness. The yellow somehow made it special. 

It was magical. Allowed for fancy dreams to be visualized. Of dragons and lilies. Of sunshine in rain. Of possibilites and joy and candour that was so everlasting! It made imagination and dreaming the most loveable past time, during short afternoon naps.

The yellow chair was special. More special than being at the cottage. More special than being yellow. The chair was special because it belonged to my grandmother. She was too fond of it. She treated it like an extension of herself. Her lifeline. 

Seated on that yellow chair she envisioned the beautiful life she lived, with the ones she loved. She smiled on the peace that surrounded her now. Beckoned the settlement she had attained. Sedated, as she rocked the chair midly, she gently laughed at how she carried out her chores rather slowly now, and how her little grand daughter played with her silver hair. 

The yellow chair is a recollection of my grand mother. Of how she is the most beautiful person at heart. Of how her beauty rests in her experience and unending love. 

Much love to the yellow chair. Much love to grandma. Happy Birthday.