I think this picture is quite apt for the post below. From a time long gone...

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance.
Living Might mean taking chances but they are worth taking…
Loving might be a mistake but it’s worth making.
Don’t let some hell bent heart leave you bitter………

Promise me The Next Time you will give faith a fighting chance…….

And The Next Time you get a choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance……

Lee Ann Womack

It felt different this feeling……

Open Palmed.

The wind passing through the gaps between his knuckles….
The searching warmth of the sun enveloping his palm……
Her, hazel eyes caressing his hands…..

The uncontrollable ebb of emotion displayed only in the strangeness of the silence.

His spirit,
Soaring to heights, he had only dreamed of.
This feeling of oneness, to another being was new.
Yet it felt like forever…..At least for as long as he could remember.

Then like an ebbed tidal wave….
The emotion receded snubbed by stealthy creeping sorrow…..
The devious human mind steadily controlling his tipsy heart…..

Him and Her

Two disjointed ends. Spread across far corners of a complicated world.
Logically, there was No balance, No certainty, No tomorrow No future.

For Them.

The Choice.

He said.
It is better now, this way with happy memories. And little bitterness to mar the memories.

She looked at him, with eyes that begged him to stay. With a stance that was too proud to ask.

A Moment.

And then they turned at their heels and left.

People I Hang Out With

Everyone loves beer and rock music. Everyone thinks Jimi Hendrix to be the baap of his times. Ditto for Janis Joplin. Santana plays the guitar like God. Kurt Cobain makes everyone curious. Everybody loves to hate Himesh Reshammiya. And Rakhi Sawant. Gulzar is synonymous with Hindi film music and poetry. Ayn Rand is everyone's idol. Or at least was. Everybody loved Requiem For A Dream. And Fight Club. Everyone read Amar Chitra Katha in school. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection is on everyone's wishlist. Robert Frost's words inspire everyone. Everyone wants to own a house in Goa. Some prefer one up in the hills. Everyone agrees that Delhiites are snobs and Mumbaiyyas are miserly. Everybody has at least three credit cards and the next is going to be an Amex. The Swift is the prettiest looking small car, Skoda the most reliable and everyone will recognize a yellow Lamborghini. Friends is the best sitcom of all times and everyone has DVDs back home. And favorite episodes. John Abraham is the hottest. Abhishek Bacchan too. So is Katrina Kaif. Golmaal and Hera Pheri is always funny. The N Series is uber cool. Everyone thinks they are underpaid and overworked. Everyone wants to love and everybody loves to hate...

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on

'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone ...

- Everybody Hurts
REM

Three differing experiences within the span of 24 hours can make someone think so much. Standing on the edge of a local train whizzing by stations at 80 kph, hanging out, feeling the wind in your hair and between your palms, death is only an instant away. One jump and none of it would matter, none of the worries for the future, regret for the past, joy at small things, angst at everything that seems unfair. One can easily be one of those numbers that get thrown about often enough. Of railway accidents, of youth suicides, or mystery accidents, or aged parents left fending for themselves, of youth and big city blues...just about any of them. And then one thought keeps it all at bay. That of life being a gift from a supernatural force that is well worth living through. It has to mean something, doesn't it, that you were conceived from an act of love and that a woman bore through the pain and weight of 9 months that culminated into a delivery worth long hours of pain.

And then happy memories follow, when one is ambling through the streets of childhood, where one took long walks on the pretext of brushing teeth and taking an unpolluted walk in the open lands near the house. Of how an year was planned around the routines of school, a few festivals and the season, which guided what you wore, what games you played and how inclined you were to study. And how one learnt the art of holding the cricket bat and whacking the ball so hard that it shot through the sky like a bullet and landed on someone's tin roof like a mortar shell. Well, at least in your imagination, you wished that happened. When you remember the brother you learnt it from, who, now can probably gain sit in the best seat possible for any international cricket match...from up above, so high, like a diamond in the sky.

And then, talk to a terminally ill relative, alongside an irresponsible out of work drunkard and the responsibility of two kids to boot, one of them quite inclined to follow in his fathers footsteps. A lady whose throat pipe blocked with a tumour, rendering even the simple act of drinking water seem like forcing a fork through...and yet, find an immeasurable sense of strength, the will to survive inspite of all odds, yet realize, that wishing something so hard does not always mean that really much. Death, followed by a strange act of good luck, as if He, up there, wishes to serve a consolation, His way to telling everyone of how hard some jobs are, yet they need to be done and if at least in a small way, He tries to be fair.