Love, forbidden

If only they had never met
Or met when it wasn't forbidden to care
If only they had never spoken
If only everything was as easy to share
If only he could bear the gloom in her eyes
If only he didn't move mountains for her cheer
If only he didn't need her to live
If only needing her wasn't so unfair
If only he could help falling in love
If only he could rip his heart for her bare
If only he weren't afraid they wouldn't survive the truth
If only his love was stronger than his fear
If only his arms wouldn't ache to hold her
If only his eyes wouldn't shamelessly stare
If only it was enough to watch her from afar
But if it didn't hurt so much, it wouldn't be love my dear.

Itni shiddat se khud se lad rahe hain
Na jee rahe hain, na dhang se mar rahe hain
Bas os ki boondon se bikhar rahe hain
Daudte lamhon ke darmiyaan theher rahe hain


Ek kal mein ji rahe hain, ek kal se dar rahe hain
Jane itni shiddat se kyun khud se lad rahe hain

#FirstWorldProblems

मेरे जैसों की struggles भी गजब हैं आज कल
जो है उस की कीमत नहीं, जो ना मिले, चाहत है वही
हर चीज़ की home delivery है
purpose  के लिए कोई app नहीं
Ambition है, patience नहीं
Boredom से बड़ी कोई problem नहीं
कभी छोटी चीज़ों से भी घबरातें हैं
कभी किसी बात का भी डर नहीं
Problems का answer भी दारु में ढूँढ़ते हैं
Celebration का भी धुँआ है वही
Knowledge  है, wisdom नहीं
Anger बहुत है, empathy नहीं 
Relationships  हमेशा  complicated ही रहती हैं
पैसा चाहिए, पर पैसे की कीमत भी नहीं
Commitment सबसे censored "C-word" है
Options चाहिए decisions नहीं
बस चले तो हम जीना भी outsource कर दें
इस आसानी से मिली ज़िन्दगी में excitement enough नहीं । 

Inertia

हम हैं क्योंकि,  बस, हम हैं
हम ना होते तो बदलता कुछ नहीं ।
ग़म मेरा तेरे ग़म से कम सही
ग़म का ना होना, ख़ुशी तो नहीं ॥




I am, because, only just because I am
If I weren't to be, no one would give a damn
Your problems might be bigger than mine, my boy
But absence of sorrows is not joy.

I need too much

I need sleep. But the kind which is deep, tired and restful with no nightmares.
I need food. But the kind that you love every morsel of because you were famished and because it was well-earned.
I need work. But the kind which is challenging, meaningful, frustrating and satisfying at the same time.
I need friends. But the real ones, the 4 am ones, the always-there-for-you-in-good-bad-or-no-news ones. The non-Facebook kind.
I need a life. But not like this. One I can afford to waste. One which I pretend has some meaning by spewing gibberish that sounds profound.

Leadership lessons HBS couldn't teach me

Here's the thing about leadership voids. 

Either you step up and fill them. Or you step out, before they consume you.

Because no matter how swanky the ship and no matter far the currents carry you, eventually, a captain-less ship gets lost in the sea.

Losing

When I first saw you, and was attracted to you, I tried my best and I did my best not to get close to you. I tried my best not to fall in love with you. Not to picture our hands intertwined. Not to think of our lives together that could have been. Not to dream of you lying next to me every night. But, my best couldn't win. I fell and fell so hard that I can never go back to a point where I don't love you like crazy. I lost, but it was the sweetest loss in my whole life.
Because I won you. Because you made the dream come true and made me live it every second. You put your hand in mine and completed the picture. You made my reality a hundred times better than any imagination.
And now I can't sleep unless you are next to me. I want your love, your anger, your tantrums, your smile. All of your smiles, because they still make my heart skip a beat.
I want this forever.
I want to keep losing to you, everyday for the rest of my life.

What does the heart say?

Is intuition over-rated?
Under-rated?

Is there such a thing as intuition?

"Making gut calls" is one thing. What about "waiting for the gut to say something so you can make a call"?

Rationalization is SO tempting. There's little that's TERRIBLE. Yet choices have consequences. Overwhelming consequences.


Your choice is being watched. Make it well.

Dude. Do I need more pressure? Hmph.

Decisions decisions. 

The haze

There is the what 
And then there's the why
Some times we don't ask the why in the first place
But often we do
often we ask whys only in vain
Not really wanting to know
Labeling it unknowable
Giving up too soon
And some other times still
We know
But we don't want to admit it
I guess if we persevered enough
To get to that why
The picture would be a lot clearer
But then again
The question I ask from within the frame
Is why even ask for a clearer picture
The haze is good
The haze is good

Change - XI

Even after all these years, even as I know what I know and understand what I understand from every single time this happened before, the truth is, I am still not good with change.
Especially when I can see it coming.
I am okay with ambiguity, but I am not okay with the anticipation. I dont like knowing and watching the slow unraveling and the inching towards endings. I dont like wondering what it means and wishing it meant more. I dont like thinking about the future when there is nothing I can do at the moment than to wait for it to come to me.

Life happens, I guess. Change is inevitable and mostly, it is a good thing. God knows I want things to change this time. I feel so done. And yet, transitions are not so great when you know you are in the middle of them.

At least, and this is the good part, I know that when it happens and I have to deal with the moments, I will be just fine irrespective of how things play out.

I can handle it.

Fangirling

I miss watching Rahul Dravid play. Live.

The excitement, the nervousness, the sheer bliss.

Oh man, I want to be 16 again.

If for no other reason, then just for this one.

Mere aansuon ko tere aansuon se
Shikwa bhi hai, mohabbat bhi hai
Sulagakar dil mein jo nazron mein pighalta
Gham jitna udhar hai, utna idhar bhi hai

Purpose

Nothing is ever wasted

- Nancy Koehn, Apr 14 2015

Stop dwelling. 

Stop wondering. 

Stop questioning. 

Keep doing. 

The purpose shall come to you.

Begin within.

Audacity

The power to achieve great things lies in earnest longing, not in contentment. 

Dream audacious. 
You may never ge there, but you'd never stop trying.

अर्ज़ी

मेरे खुदा तू ही जाने तेरी क्या मर्ज़ी है
मेरे मासूम दिल की तुझसे बस इतनी अर्ज़ी है
कि दर्द अगर दे, तो सहने का सबर भी देना
ज़िन्दगी चाहे ले लेना, मेरे जीने की वजह ना लेना । 

Remembering

Today, I stopped. I realized I wanted to remember.

It's been snowing for days. It was good at first, but slowly I got weary of it. I complained about the inconveniences and the mountains on the ground. Icomplained about the gloominess and just prayed for it to end. In all that weariness, in that constant running for cover, I didn't notice.

Or maybe I did, but I am not sure if I noticed enough to commit it to memory.

So I could remember.

There is something special about the present, every present, that is very very easy to ignore. We often romanticize the past, however past is but an accumulation of presents. There's something unique, irresistible and irreplaceable about today - this place, this time, and this version of me.
I wanted to remember.

So I stopped walking, let my arms free and my eyes wander. I smelt, I felt and I tried hard for my mind to remember this moment. Later, I took a few pictures, but pictures preserve but a fraction of reality. I let the snow flakes fall freely all over me until my hair was white and my lips blue. I looked at the surroundings - both the legacy and the potential of this place I find myself at - and tried hard to fight the feeling of insignificance for my life. I lost the fight when I saw how each snowflake kissed the ground and melted away like it never mattered - it represented every moment of my life thus far, passing me by, not mattering.

It is hard to value every tiny little - but unique in its own right - individual snow flake when you stand in an ocean of five feet snow. But they have to matter because it is them - those individual snow flakes - that combine to form the ocean of snow. Every moment in our life matters, if only a little, because their corpses accumulate to become the person we become and the life we've lived.

At long, one tear escaped my cheek. I was trying so hard to remember, but I knew I was failing at it. But the tear froze, and soon became indistinguishable from the droplets freezing and falling all over me. That's when it hit me that my individual grief is trivial and indistinguishable.

If I want to matter, I need to move the snow.

Coffee

The city was asleep under a blanket of snow.
It was the third day of a snowstorm that had painted the city white and dropped mountains of powder everywhere its arms reached. All activity had abated as people waited, weary and warm inside their heated homes. They were trapped, but the storm didn't care. The storm continued to rage.

She walked around alone, marveling at how the snow made the earth glow up in the night. She liked the solitude, the calmness that the blanket of snow provided. Everything had slowed down, perhaps with the sole intention of giving her time to absorb everything that had happened. The winter made it hard to pinpoint the true cause of her frozen heart. She welcomed the ambiguity.
It was cold outside. And inside. She didn't care.

Flakes settled on her coat. She rubbed her fingers against her palm inside her coat one more time. Damn, she should have brought gloves.

Everything felt surreal. The leafless, colorless, still atmosphere around her was a far cry from the springy smoggy jungles she had left behind when she had hopped onto that plane. It had been four days now, three longer than had been planned, but she didn't mind too much. She was trapped here, she was trapped there. At least here there was no expectation to move forward.

Her eyes settled on a homeless man making an igloo out of the snow that continued to fall unabated. Loss did not have to translate to helplessness.

The breeze picked up and she felt her lips turning blue. She saw the open coffee-shop. A little rest wouldn't hurt. Besides, she wanted to watch that man finish his igloo. She went inside and took a window seat, after asking for a cappuccino.

Her mind wandered back in time again. The truth stared in her face. Actually, it always had, but she could no longer deny it. But she wasn't ready to confront it, and hence she had run. The business trip was a good excuse. She volunteered when someone pulled out last moment. At that time, she needed to put some time and space between them.
Now, she understood that both time and space had made their homes - permanently - long ago. There was nothing to save, nothing to confront.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. Moments and memories floated by. Her hands - by now warm - could feel the way he felt when she touched him. She rubbed her fingers over her palm, until the feeling was no longer there.
It was over.

She opened her eyes and saw someone putting her cappuccino in front of her. She looked at the cup, and saw someone that looked a lot like herself.
Only unbroken.

Her eyes traced the man who had handed her the coffee. He was the only one working in the shop at the ungodly hour where the only customers other than her were a teenage couple. He was the one she'd placed the order to when she came in, but she hadn't looked at him until now.

She stared at him for a long time before he finally looked at her and their eyes met. Neither could break the gaze. Neither talked, or smiled. In ten seconds, from ten feet away, they became friends.

Outside, the storm had abated. The snow glowed, but the air sparkled with freshness. The plowing, the paving and the melting would start in the morning, but for now, everything was just right.

She picked up her cup of coffee and walked the seven steps to the counter.
"I'd like to share my coffee."

He smiled. In seven words, in seven steps, they became soulmates.

Ilzaam

Kuch tumhaare, kuch hamare, kuch dard benaam sahi

Dard baantana zindagi ki fikrat hai, zindagi par ilzaam nahi



*************************



Pehli aandhi mein ghar bikhra, doosri mein khwab lut gaye

Teesra to toofan tha, jeene ki wajah bhi le gaya

Khudgarz lootera saanson ka, aakhir kaar aaya to magar

Bin kuch liye bas hum ko khud ki tabaahi ka ilzaam de gaya