Grief & Pain

Pre script : I came across this post on Twitter  by Lauren Herchel on the Grief Ball Analogy and felt a need to share it along with my inputs in hope that it helps people overcome grief and pain. This post is an outcome of my personal experience with grief and how it affected me as a person, how it shaped my personality and more importantly, how I perceived and responded to various forms of relationships and connections due to the same.

I have always believed that love and grief are twin brothers, two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to escape grief, it comes along with love. And similarly, talking about grief is almost like talking about love - it is felt just as deeply, it changes you as a person and it persists almost as long as love.

But first, I'd like to share this post on Twitter  by Lauren Herchel on the Grief Ball Analogy

1. The Box

Imagine you are the box.

2. The Grief Ball.

Once you suffer some trauma resulting in a deep sense of loss, there is this huge weight that you feel inside your heart. Like a giant ball of grief.

3. The Pain Button

At the inception, the grief ball is gigantic. The moment you try to move the box an iota of an inch, the grief ball hits the pain button. It jumps and rattles hither and thither, at its own whims, and keeps on hitting the pain button over and over again. God, it hurts. It hurts bad. On some days, it feels like you will die of the pain or perhaps wish that you do. Just to stop the pain. But it won't stop. It hits the pain button relentlessly. 

It gets difficult to get on with daily life with this pain inside you all the time. But nobody outside of the box understands the pain. Sometimes you don't understand it yourself! In an attempt to get rid of some weight, you start to unload other people from the boat to save it from sinking due to the heavy weight of the box. Most people would not get this, they might turn hostile and blame you for leaving them. But you can either try to stay afloat and alive or take these blames onto yourself. Perhaps you can try sharing this pain with them. Sometimes, they help you by handing you a life jacket. But mostly, they will find you obnoxious, negative, intense, silent, boring, weird and unbearable. I say, leave these anchors. Clutch to the life jacket. 

Years later, the anchors still blame me. They never understood, they never will unless they go through some life-altering trauma themselves. And the life jacket? Well, I am married to my life jacket.

4. The healing touch of time

With the passage of time, the grief ball gets smaller or may be the box grows bigger, I don't know. But the pain gets better because it hits the pain button less and less. But still, it is as whimsical as ever. Sometimes, it hits the pain button randomly when you least expect it to and it hurts just as much. Sometimes, the anchors come back out of the blue and trigger it and it hurts just as much. 

I personally feel that the grief ball never goes away. It stays as long as the love inside you, it becomes a part of you. However, sometimes, if you're lucky, God sends you a cushion to put on the pain button so that when the grief ball goes awry, it doesn't hit the push button.

The takeaways from the theory  - 

1. We all have a bag but we all pack differently. Some travel light. Some, like me, are secret hoarders - unable to part away with memories. These two mutually exclusive types of people will never be able to understand each other. We can only accept each other for who we are or part ways.

2. People your age who didn't experience life-altering trauma have an absolute advantage over you because while all your efforts were towards survival and keeping yourself afloat, they were free to grow and develop. You might often feel you are not able to relate to them. It's okay!

3. Trust issues become internalized if you did not receive support during your traumatic phase. Ever felt like - "I don't need anyone and I can handle on my own"

It's a survival tactic to shield yourself from  neglect, betrayal and disappointment from those who could not and would not be there for you when they ought to have been there. Such people really have a hard time making connections with people.

4. Trauma survivors often tend to oscillate between past and the future. Basis their experiences in the past, they try to safeguard themselves from similar pain in the future by trying to control everything possible in their hands. It's their way of responding to the uncertainty that the trauma gave them and they do not ever want themselves in the same situation of weakness and pain. 

   

I am not here to judge anyone on how they dealt with their grief and pain. I am not here to preach on ways of dealing with the same. Nor am I here to blame the anchors out there. Because everyone has their own journey and baggage, I just wish we were a more emphatic specie! My learning so far from all of this is that keep your focus on the life jacket and the cushion. The Universe sent them for a reason. Treasure them. Be grateful for them.

P.S. This post is dedicated to my life jacket and also to two most important people of my life- I hope that I make you proud everyday. 

Chal do na saath mere...

I reckon the title of my blog (ROFL) is soon going to go obsolete, the rate at which the seriousness in my blog is increasing. I am scared that I am losing my ability to find humour in everything !

Anyway, this blog is a consequence of  my mind's palaver that came up as I was helping my niece with her homework on 'Means of Transport'. And ironically, travelling is the only thing that helps me quieten the palaver of my head! This post talks about the same. How various means of commuting keep me from getting stranded, not just literally but metaphorically too.

• Walking
  walking has always been my greatest respite whenever I feel frustrated. It has perhaps got something to do with release of oxytocin into your body when you perspire; I feel fantastic after a 30-minutes walk. Moreover, it helps clear my thoughts and gives me a fresh perspective to see things from. My preferred style of a rejuvenating walk is leaving behind all my stuff esp phone at home making myself unreachable and walking alone, without any earphones inserted into my ears, enjoying the serenity of nature. Silence is the law of nature - trees grow in silence; the sun moves in silence. And that is how I unplug myself from the world - solitude, silence and solace. 

I grow silent. Dear soul, you speak.
~ Rumi

• Cycling
  When I learnt how to ride a cycle, I heard this profound philosophy -
  
  life is like riding a bicycle; to keep your balance, you must keep moving forward.
  Of course, I didn't understand it back then. All I enjoyed was the fierce rush of wind on my face as I rode at a breathtaking speed. While cycling, I always feel like the captain of my life - speed, direction, brakes, everything is under my control. And the secret power that I derive from the realisation that I actually AM the master of my life is enough to move mountains.

Walk out of any doorway
Feel your way, feel your way
Like the day before
maybe you'll find direction
around some corner
where it's been waiting to meet you.

• Car
  Being an amateur driver, I don't trust myself with cars. So I always ask my brother to take me for a late night long drive whenever I feel the need... the need for speed. The reckless 120kmph, no red lights, no traffic and the wide roads of Dwarka - recipe of adrenaline rush. Believe me, the thrill of speed helps overcome ANY kind of fear.

• Train
  The feel of Jab We Met !
  The best part about a train journey is how it helps you get over the past - when you sit at a window seat and look out at the picturesque scenery that is constantly being left behind as the train moves forward, you realise that life is pretty much like a train journey. You board a train, meet people along the way who have their own journeys to undertake, they will each accompany you a little before getting down at their respective destinations, you will leave so many stations and even more people behind in order to reach your ultimate destination. And the most baffling part is that once you reach there, you will realise that it is not the destination but the journey that matters and has made all the difference.
  And you never know that you might bump into your Aditya Kashayap while on a train ! :D

• Aeroplane
  A plane journey is a levitating experience, in every sense of the word. Although I find travelling on a plane quite boring, I cannot deny that it helps me rise above pettiness - as the air plane takes off, I find that I am leaving all my problems back on Earth and am rising above all the average things! It is a very abrupt feeling. I suddenly feel that my horizon has widened as much as the vast sky and every problem seems trivial, I feel powerful and capable to rise above everything and reach the sky, Trust me, the feeling is very liberating. If ever you feel bogged down by the burden of expectations or responsibilities or life in general, take a flight and fly away from everything for a while. It will unquestionably lift you up and your spirits!

• Cruise
  This is in bucket list. I am going to write about it once I tick this item off the list.
  I am pretty sure that there can be no better pleasure than sailing smoothly with the sound of sea accompanying you.

Life is about moving and constantly moving on. It is like a river- remember that stagnant water will always breed mosquitoes and become unhealthy and polluted. That is why my mantra for life is just let everything happen at its own pace and to never hang or cling onto anything; keep going with the flow. Keep walking.

Main udna chahta hoon, daudna chahta hoon, girna bhi chahta hoon... bas rukna nahi chahta.
#yeh jawaani hai deewani

इस असुविधा के लिए हमें खेद है...

Pre - script : This post was supposed to come out long time back but I was occupied with audit plus somebody made me realise that I might be following a pattern - my last two posts being posted on 5/5 and 6/6 respectively and hence this one on 7/7 :D





So I was one of those caught in (yet another) technical glitch in Delhi's sweetheart - Metro.
This was the second time I got stuck, with a drone of "इस असुविधा के लिए हमें खेद है...We are sorry for the inconvenience caused", giving me and other people a monotonous company...

(a little bit of trivia here -

The Male voice of the Delhi Metro — Shammi Narang (Speaks in Hindi)

The Female voice of the Delhi Metro — Rini Simon Khanna (Speaks in English)




)


The first time I was lucky - I hadn't boarded the metro. I kept waiting at the platform but the metro didn't come ! Consequently, I had to miss my office (The clients are on cloud 9 when the auditors take a leave, just saying!) Anyway, I took a bus and got back home...Though I have used DTC a lot for travelling but that was in college...this time I was in formals, carrying heavy books and files...Aftermath - I sprained my ankle (ouch! that hurt...A LOT !)

The second time I got stuck inside the metro for about 45 minutes...When the metro staff finally surrendered to the glitch and asked us all to move out and make our own arrangements, I took a bus (No sprain or injuries this time, thankfully) from the nearest bus stop and reached home in 2 effing hours. For those who have travelled in a DTC bus would be aware of the fact that crowd in the buses is horrendous. A guy got slapped by a woman and I think that would give you an idea that sometimes DTC buses breed potential rapists.


This is why I love Delhi Metro.
You get to observe a wide gamut of people in a comparatively safer and air-conditioned environment.
So notwithstanding the ever- increasing technical failures, my affection for metro continues to grow with the passage of time.
It's become such an integral part of my life that the three hours that I spend in metro daily, I feel like home...that this is where I belong...It might sound insane but sometimes when I feel lost, I have found solace in the metro...when I wish to go neither home nor office, I simply board a metro without any destination in mind...simply to go on...silencing the palaver, it somehow clears out my head...I call it The Metro Therapy (Don't google it up, both the nomenclature and the therapy are of my own creation)

This is a picture of Rajeev Chowk Metro station at peak hours (I tried to take the picture but was scolded by a guard there #फोटोग्राफी निषेद है so I had to copy it from google images.) I have always been mesmerised by this scene (Perhaps my brother IS right...perhaps waldosia is the word for me)...hundreds of heads bobbing in and out after every few minutes...it might sound creepy but it looks no different than the colony of ants moving in and out...it is like getting caught in the sea of people where EACH person is running like a maniac...somebody is rushing for an urgent meeting while somebody is getting late for his exam...there is a girl trampling upon your foot with her heels while dashing towards her boyfriend...there is an old man who has to work even after retirement to meet his ends...there is a man storming out of the metro, his face tense and anxious, to take the yellow line metro towards AIIMS where his pregnant wife is soon going to give birth to his child...each person fighting his/her own battle in his/her own different way...
Metro is the storehouse of such hundred thousand stories...there is a beautiful word that aptly describes what I am trying to say here - sonder.

And that is why, to me, metro seems to be a living creature breathing the spirit of ' just keep moving, no matter what' as it makes way through the tunnels of Delhi like a humongous nematode.

Another lesson that metro seems to be conveying to me is about changes...that in order to reach your final destination, you have to embrace changes - get down at one station and take another metro. And that people are meant to just give you a company, the journey you have to make on your own...some started with you from where you first boarded the metro and got down at their respective stations...Some people continue to travel along with you for a little longer but eventually their ways separate too...such changes are part and parcel of life and there is nothing to be sad about it because in the end,everybody has his/her own journey and destination and they just happen to meet you as a co-passenger as your paths cross for a while...

As easy as it sounds to be, a change, no matter how good, is never easy to make...because change means to break free from your boundaries of comfort and venture out into the unknown... just to illustrate my point - 

This is my first ever metro travel card...I used it for 5years till a month back when it started giving issues and became unreadable at the AFC gates and the TVMs one day...and it was with a heavy heart that I got a new travel card made :( Because it wasn't just a travel card...for me, it was a loyal companion who saw me through all kinds of situations - when I was running late for college (read daily), when I had my final exams and almost ran to catch the metro to be on time for the exam, when I bunked college and went for movies, when I went for my CA classes, when I started from home for office but went to Manan's (my nephew) place instead, when I had had a serious argument with a friend and left for home in tears, when I used to be so tired because of coaching that I would sit on the floor of the metro (which is prohibited), when I would refuse to eat in the metro no matter how hungry just because I didn't want to litter the clean floor (Only after I lost a lot of weight because my meals got skipped due to coaching, I started eating my lunch in the metro), when my IPCC/Bcom Hons results were out and I celebrated my success with special friends creating memorable moments, when I felt frustrated and boarded the metro just to escape my own self...

I can go on and on about the memories this special card held. 

Notice the past tense...because I gave the card back to DMRC. Though I wanted to keep it as a souvenir but then I realised that as time elapses, everything fades away...people who were with you at the inception of your journey might not be there as you reach your destination...your perceptions change...sometimes your course of journey changes...so how could this little card be with me till eternity...I knew that I had to let go of the emotional stuff attached with it...because only when I clear out the old things can I replace them with new things and experiences...it was like losing a part of my heart but what can not be cured must be endured...and so I did...

This one saw me through my CA IPCC and the new one is recording my journey of CA Final :)

And, of course, my articleship.

I am allocated in a freight company at Mahipalpur these days...and I use the Airport Express line for commuting...Albeit expensive, it is so far one of the best means of public transport that I have ever used. It is totally different from the normal metro in the following aspects :

1. While you have an overzealous reaction (OMG...it is a lucky day !!!) when you manage to get a seat in Blue line metro, the Airport line has only 5% occupancy on an average.

2. It runs at 120kmph vis à vis blue line metro's 80kmph.

3. The platforms have enormous glass panels which open when the metro enters.This provides extra safety as highly stressed people of India attempt suicides quite often.

4. It is so clean that you actually have to remind yourself that you are still in India.

On the flip side,

a) It is quite expensive which perhaps is the reason behind such a low occupancy.

b) It has a waiting for 20 minutes on an average as compared to 1 minute in Blue line metro! So if you miss one, you are bound to get late ! 

c) The quintessential people of India are conspicuous by their absence - 

•  There is no auntyji elbowing her way out in the waiting line.
• There is no girl applying nail paint while talking to her boyfriend on phone.
• There is no middle-aged lady, who has just been scolding a guy for calling her aunty, pretending to be a senior citizen just to get a seat.
• There are no kids doing 'pole dance' :P
• There is nobody staring at you (people in India generally believe that they have the right to stare just because they have been given eyes.)
• There is no aroma of achaar-parantha that a famished soul might be gorging on.
• There are no bespectacled CA students with Accountancy or Costing or Audit books in hand, catching up on sleep.Only the MBA-looking people reading orange newspapers - ET or Business Standard. :D
• There is no auntyji looking at you with beseeching eyes to vacate your seat for her.(Some even go to the extent of saying "beta hame seat de do, aap to jawaan log ho")

But the good things are that - 

• There is nobody judging you as a slut if you are in a skirt.
•  You are not sandwiched between the pervert male population who strip you with their eyes and have sex with you mentally.

There is no dearth of experiences that I have had in metro. When I come to think about it, this is a really stupid topic to write a blog on...but there is this deep connection that I feel with metro...it is actually a Surbhi-thing...I like the way my thoughts fall into place while I am travelling...The strangers look more familiar than the people you thought you knew so well...I have had so many memorable random conversations with strangers in metro...especially with foreigners...I have this silly habit of going up to them and asking about their experiences in India [60% of them have turned out to be Russians and loved Delhi and Bollywood and SRK (the females, obviously)]...I start talking to any Tom,Dick or Harry with a novel ! I have befriended so many CA people I met in metro because you happen to see the same faces at each coaching you attend...There have also been some bizarre incidents when people have come up to me to say things about my fingers (I have abnormally long and thin fingers that catch every body's attention) and been told different theories about it - people with long fingers tend to be really rich, people with long fingers are known to be arrogant, people with long fingers are possessive and so on and so forth! 

Dear Delhi Metro,

Thank you for making my life so comfortable...No matter how much people grumble about your technical failures (This is what they say- metro ab buddhi ho gayi hai!), I want you to know that I am immensely grateful for your presence...you carry lakhs of people daily who sometimes litter or even damage you...Thank you for giving me so many memorable moments...it's like you have been making my journey of life along with me...I don't know what I would do without you, I would be stranded in every sense of the word !

Yours sincerely

A commuter.

The Increment.

"I LOVE YOU", they say are the best words forever but "Your account has been credited with INR  XX.XX", in my opinion, do a better job.

Well, I got a similar SMS today and was just about to feel ecstatic when I noticed the figure with which my account was credited. It was more than usual. Ecstasy was replaced by curiosity and I enquired the accountant about the same...I was told that it's been one year since I joined my articleship so the hike in the stipend!

WOW.

Pure bliss.

What's better than being paid for doing nothing after all? :D

Just kidding...about the doing nothing part, I mean...CA and doing nothing = oxymoron.

To put it in self- explanatory words, Bakre ko halaal krne se pehle khoob khilaya jata hai...so the hike perhaps indicates what the further years of articleship have in store for me...I am the bakra here, just FYI.

Anyway, what baffled me was the fact that it took an increment in my paycheck to make me realise that it has already been one whole year since I joined my articleship ! 

1 year...12 months...365 days...8760 hours...525600 minutes...3153600 seconds...

Time flies by fast!

Now that I come to think about it, I feel that this last one year has been a total roller coaster ride. Life changes drastically once you get out of college.

Baba Ranchoddas Chanchad RDB mei bhi sahi gyaan de gaye hame -

College de gate de is taraf hum life ko nachaate hain...te duji taraf life humko nachati hai...

If I get a 10 marks question on college vs office life, this would be my answer -

	BASIS	COLLEGE		OFFICE
1	Attire	You can wear absolutely anything  (I have been to college in my tracksuit)		You wear formals day after day.
2	Truancy	You bunk college to take a break		You bunk office and have to do twice the normal work the next day
3	Weekends	Weekends are for hanging out		Weekends are for catching up on sleep
4	Deadlines	You have deadlines just for submitting that assignment which you will copy at the eleventh hour from somebody		You have deadlines just about everything. Delay on your part means extra work on Sundays.
5	Meeting Friends	You meet your friends daily		Just like the financial statements that you work upon, you meet your friends annually.
6	Topic of Discussion	You talk about the new movies that have released		You talk about the new Companies   Act
7	Fantasies	You fantasise about life after college, of financial independence, of formals, of professional ethics.		You are nostalgic about college beyond words. Screw formals, screw professional ethics, you miss college like anything.
8	Surbhi- specific behaviour	Manage to reach late everyday despite getting up on time.		Manage to reach late everyday despite getting up on time.
9	Who cares	Nobody cares about what you believe/say/do.		Nobody cares about what you believe/say/do.
10	Studies	You don't study.		You don't study.

(7/10...#8, #9 and #10 are not really points of difference :P)

To sum up,

एक वो वक़्त था जब हम सोचते थे कि हमारा भी वक़्त आएगा...
एक ये वक़्त है कि हम सोचते हैं कि वो भी क्या वक़्त था...

True, albeit hackneyed, life after college sucks but office has taught me the rule of thumb of the corporate culture and of life in general - There is nothing of any importance in life - except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. (#Atlas Shrugged)

Three cheers for my increment  :D

Band Baajaa Baraat :D

Pre - script : This is a satire on Indian marriages, written solely for entertainment (what else do you expect, the title of my blog is ROFL?!) and is not intended to offend anybody or any ritual or anything for that matter. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No, No, I am not getting married so relax, my secret admirers (:P), this post is an aftermath of attending 4 weddings within a fortnight...

Welcome to the big fat Indian wedding...

Shailesh (Shanty)

   weds

Kajal (Kaju)

(Dinner hosted by Khurana family)

That's what a little signboard at the entry gate said, yes, the 'shanty' and 'kaju' part included, reminding me of kaju barfi... Anyway, I ignored it because - 

1. Being born into a Punjabi family, I am used to this sort of stuff.

2. Being born into a Punjabi family, all I cared about was the dinner part :D (I know that it's a bit harsh but I don't care you call him Shalu or Shanty or Shit, Kajal Khurana oops Kajal Shanty Arora,  you better serve delectable shahi paneer and dal makhni or I shall ask the God of weddings to make you fat soon after the marriage which you'll anyway become :P)

And as I entered, my sense organs had to start working at double the normal speed...the sound of Punjabi music (ears), the aroma of food (nose), scanning the crowd so that I could escape the irksome relatives (eyes) [if you are a boy, you use this sense organ to scan the extra voluptuous female members in extra tight clothes, of the homo sapiens species], food (tongue), centralized air-conditioning causing goosebumps (skin).

I'd like to list out some of the quintessential facts about a desi shaadi -

1. The groom side NEVER shows up on time. If you are from the groom's side, you have to wait for ages for them to arrive so that you can hand them over the shagun and leave. If you are from the bride's side, you have to wait on the other side of the ribbon and haggle with the groom side to let them cut the ribbon. In both the cases, you lose a lot of precious time which could otherwise have been utilised for sleeping, sorry I mean studying :P

2. There is ALWAYS some auntyji concerned more than necessary about your career because her husband's brother's wife's sister's son also did the same course as you and so that makes her qualified to suggest you that Modi College of Engineering is better than Kejriwal College of Technology or big 4s are better than small or medium level firms.

3. There is a gang of your father's masiji(s) and maamaji(s) who will suggest to your parents that "ab iska number bhi aane wlaa hai,bahot padhaai ho gayi ab iske liye bhi dekhna shuru karo" (I always shut them up by forcing them to eat gulaabjamun, I swear on Harry Potter's scar that it always works. You lose the dessert but yay, no more bullcrap! :D )

4. There is this one whiny relative who will catch hold of you and say "aap toh kabhi yaad hi nahi karte hame"

Uff.

(Aap to jaise hame roz roz whatsapp karte hain na !!!)

5. Some uncle you have never seen in 22 years of your existence will come to you, pull your cheeks and say "itni si thi jab dekhi thi aur ab dekho...kaunsi class mei ho gayi" and then for some reason he will take out some money and force it into your hand. And this is a rule that you refuse it twice till he says aashirwaad hota hai, mana nahi karte.It then becomes your moral duty to accept it.
I have been more of a samjhdaar kid so I always hand over the money to my parents but sometimes I think that had I not been handing it over to my parents and collected all the money such relatives gave me since 28.04.1992, I'd have a capital of at least 20lacs to invest in my imaginary business!

6. One elderly female sitting on the couch who you'll have to go and meet because she can't move. She is the one who is made to guard all the bags.

7. The NRI relatives of the family impeccably dressed in a traditional attire, looking more Indian than all the Indians present in the wedding. The tall, blonde French guy seems so irresistible that you forget all decency and keep staring at him :P (ye point #3 wale masi n mama ji ko ab kyu nahi yaad ata ki mera number aane wala hai?! :P :P )

8. A group of aunties busy gossiping and finding faults in other aunties' sarees and suits. And then suddenly one of them asks in a hush- hush voice "arranged marriage hai ya love?" and when the answer is arranged, I am reminded of this - 

9. This is the funniest of all - the photographer zooming in on the people eating and people posing for the video camera like it's a still camera :P

 Finally, the baraat arrives. There are shiny decked-up aunties dancing (how they manage to dance in heels is a mystery I have never been able to solve) with the baraat with their equally shiny purses tucked into their armpits.

And suddenly there is a lot of crowd on the DJ.

I have noticed this pattern - as the friends of the groom show their moves on the DJ, either of these two songs is played-

a) aaj mere yaar ki shadi hai!

b) ek kunwaara fir gaya maara, fas gaya dekho ye bechara !

And then some crazy fellow from the group pulls the groom on the DJ and he is made to dance on apne vyaah te nachda firre!!
Then suddenly all these fellows (except the groom) vanish somewhere for a while and come back all energetic and dance bizarrely on the beats of do ghoont pila de saathiyaa and I understand where they must have disappeared.

And then suddenly the dance-music is stopped and din shagana da chadheya is played and all the focus shifts as the coy bride, clad in all red, enters. She takes ages to reach the stage where the groom is waiting for her. Once she is there, the bride and the groom exchange the varmaala (there is a lot of hooting as the groom's friends lift him up so that the bride can't reach him.)

Then it's time for the poses and everybody comes and showers the blessings on the newly wed couple.

After the pictures and poses, they have dinner together.

While the bride and the groom look all jittery thinking about all the changes that would soon come into their lives after the wedding, all the relatives change into comfortable casuals because it's time for the pheras.

The pheras are the most sacred part of an Indian wedding. The couple makes the vows of being together till death do them apart.

Fast- forwarding,

As the pheras come to an end, the bride gets all moist-eyed (This is perhaps the only time when a woman's worry of smudging her makeup takes a backseat! :P), hugs her family and leaves with the groom in a beautifully decorated car for their home (where the friends and family have planted alarm clocks to ruin their first night together.)

And so it ends after a night-long saga !

Lesson learnt - 

A Letter To My Soul Sister...

Dear Equity shareholder of my soul

The ties that bind us are sometimes impossible to explain. Some bonds defy distance. And time. And logic. Because some ties are simply meant to be.

Such bonds are formed in utterly bizarre manner...To put it in a bollywood song language - Aate jaate khoobsurat aawaara sadko pe, kabhi kabhi itefaq se...kitne anjaan log mil jate hain...unme se kuch log bhool jate hain kuch yaad reh jaate hain...of course she is in the latter category.
I plan to change my school, she plans to change her school and both of us meet at DPS R.K.Puram. She was in 8C and I was in 8B. But we both met in our third language class. The day a common friend introduced me to her, I knew we would be good friends. But then somebody  brainwashed me ("why do you fraternise so much with other section people?") I stopped speaking to her. She got hurt but didn't say anything and withdrew. And then it hit me with full force - the loneliness.I missed her. I still remember that day. It was during our PE class and we were in the sports complex when I broke down and apologised.She welcomed me back like nothing had happened. And I knew that day onwards that this bond is going to stay. It was like a silent promise between us.
9th and 10th passed in whirls of time with me teasing her a lot over her love for history :P This girl loves history ! who on earth loves history?!?

It was in 11th that I really got to know her. She took humanities and I opted for commerce.Each morning I would sleepwalk to my class (My school started at  6:50am which means I had to get up at 5:15 to catch my bus which I missed daily by the way. Those who know me well would understand this joke :P) and she would laugh herself silly at my zombie looking manner of dragging myself daily to the third floor and go straight to the restroom to wash my face, first thing in the school :P
During the break she would listen to my rant about how/why my business studies teacher made me do something I didn't want to, how I missed my bus  that day, which novel I completed last night, how I forgot to do some homework, how Voldemort gave harry the scar on his forehead, how something that somebody said to me was bothering me, how I hated getting up in the morning ...I hope you got the drift - she endured every crappy thing that I uttered :P

Then she would make me see sense...that how circumstances or events had no power till I gave them the power to affect me...how I could choose not to look at the negative side of a certain incident...and I would instantly feel better :)

There is this specific incident that she never lets me forget ! I don't know when and why and how I made such a stupid statement - One day, I am going to own more number of cars than the number of clothes you will have! 

Since that day, she has been repeating this to me and I burst out laughing at my own non sense that I once said :P

But I don't mind my own stupidity because she doesn't realise it but I notice the dazzling, to-die-for smile she gives, each time I utter such non sense :) My stupidity mode gets triggered only when I am around people I love dearly, just saying. :)

When I could not make it to SRCC, I went into my crappiest mood ever. I stopped interacting with people. She would call me up and I wouldn't say a word. Trust me, she could understand even my silence...because when words fail, silence speaks - so believes this psycho !

Oh, by the way, that's what I call her...psycho...and it's definitely not because she has done psychology hons from LSR :P

There comes a phase in every body's life when things start to take toll on you...they tend to bog you down..It comes in waves. There’s a lull and then another wave hits you. She has always been there to tell me that it’s okay not to be fine sometimes...

If ever she starts a company, its tag line is going to be - The Power is Within You ! :D Believe me, she kept telling me this till my negativity finally gave up and said- I am sorry, psycho that I ever dared to trouble your friend. You win and I lose. I will never bother her again! :P

Ain't she such a superhero kind?! :D Is boost the secret of your energy, psycho?! or is it tann ki shakti, mann ki shakti bournvita?! :P 

For the past 4 years, there has been this silly routine with me...to send goodnight messages to people...it's my way of telling them that you mean a lot to me. I had about 10 people in that list initially. Gradually things changed and people left. Now it's only her in that list. She has been diligently replying to each and every text that I send her. Each morning, I get up to her replies which are full of positivity and hope that keep me going throughout the day.

Yes, some things touch you. You cannot explain how. But they leave a lasting impact on your heart.. and mind. And soul.they become a part of you. And they are there to stay. To change you. To make you a better person.They keep you going. And at the end of everything that’s all that matters.

I don’t have to be with you to know you’re there. We don’t have to see each other to know that we care. We could be apart for years upon end and still remain the best of friends. Life goes on and people change. And through it all, our friendship shall remain the same no matter how things come to be, just thought that you should know how much you mean to me...because tera mujhse hai pehle ka naata koi :)

I can't wait to go on that fr-acation with you ;) :D

Happy Birthday, Ashu :)

You mean a lot to me.

I can't possibly put into words that tell you how much your friendship matters to me...and I know you would not want me to...because I know you understand.

I'd like to end with your fav song that pretty much says what I wish to convey - 

चलते चलते, मेरे ये गीत याद रखना

कभी अलविदा ना कहना, कभी अलविदा ना कहना.

Loads of Love,

Surbhi

P.S.
This is dedicated to you, check out the song.

count on me