A Clean Slate

Love is never a constant. Especially human love. There is nothing you can count on. There is nobody that will stay. The lips that pursed up with anger and impatience, bordering on hatred and malice yesterday may as well kiss you today. What must you feel? Yesterday's agony or today's joy?

Do not wallow, though. Those lips could have been yours too, couldn't they?

You have nothing but this road ahead of you. You have nothing but this stillness that you are breathing. In and out. In and out. You have nothing but a part of you that feels you have lived forever. You have nothing but today to live in, to breathe in. And you have nobody to do it with. You have nothing but empty words that won't touch your lips anymore because your lips are parched and you have never felt more trapped.

Trapped in your own body. Trapped in your own mind. Trapped in your own world. Indifference, real or feigned, is enough and it is true, stone walls do not a prison make. That indifference can trap you right inside the life you have chosen. And you cannot get out. You are going to be here until you forget. But you will not. Try as you may, you will not forget.

Now you know why we do not remember our past lives. It is the creator's greatest kindness to the human heart, this ability to forget. The ability to breathe once more. The ability to feel the meaning of freedom because you have forgotten, you do not remember. Your name, your relationships, your possessions, all lost in a sliver of time. And you don't miss a thing. it is your chance at living in the now. In this minute. This second. Just now.

And that is why man chooses to die. So he can forget. So he can be free. Even if temporarily. After all, we all need a clean slate.

Blue Nail Colour

Once in every while, you should remember the things you did and liked long, long ago. When you were younger than you are now.

I remember how my first nail colour was a shade of lavender with glitter. And then a shade of blue with little sparkly stars inside. Ten years hence, when I see the same colour in fancy little bottles in stores, I remember that evening, under cheap incandescent bulbs, when I was peering into a box full of nail colours that looked a lot more glamorous under the light than they did under the tubelight of my home.

So a few days back, when I walked into a store and saw a bottle of electric blue nail enamel (yes, I used to buy absolutely unpredicatable colours), I picked it up on a whim. It sat in my bag for a while. I kept glancing at it every time I would open my purse, to give money, to find my comb or to stuff my scarf in. Today, I finally mustered up the courage to get it out and painted my toe nails blue. Oddly enough, painting my toe nails blue made me feel like everything was possible. Once again.

A part of me that I had forgotten and buried away someplace deep inside of me woke up. And I remembered several things. How I used to love flip-flops and floaters. Citrusy deos. I remembered I used to tie a handkerchief to my wrist because I used to lose them very easily.

I remembered how I used to entirely adore the font Tempus Sans ITC, so much so that I put up a massive fight when I was on the college magazine board and made them agree to using it as the cover page font. I haven't seen that font in forever. It fell out of use as MS Word grew to include other, more 'legible' fonts. By the time I realised I could download it and have it on my system, I had 'moved on' from the type of vehemence it used to inspire in me.

I am still not tolerant with Times New Roman, if that gives you some heart.

I remembered how I used to love black trousers. Not denims. Trousers. Part of me still loves them, they were made of synthetic silk and they used to dry out exceptionally fast in the rains. They don't sell those anymore.

I remember how blue was my favouritest colour in the world until one day, when I had dumped my first boyfriend for various reasons that seemed highly depressing at that time, suddenly, red seemed to be screaming out at me wherever I went. Red umbrellas, red lip gloss, red belts, red wellington boots. Red filers. Red became my anti-love. Half my wardrobe turned red in a matter of two months. My wardrobe now has all colours. Even pink, if you please, a colour I used to avoid like the plague those many long years back.

I realise now that its possible to be many different people in one lifetime. You don't need multiple lifetimes for that. Every few days, we are a new person. Every seven years, we have completely turned around and changed.

Perhaps, many years ago, this bit of information would have gotten me worried. But now, its relieving. Who wants to be stuck being who they are forever? We are vessels and we hold different insides every time. We hold changing outsides too. And in that movement, lies our peace.

Don't be afraid to change. Don't be afraid to move. Surprise yourself whenever you can. And once in every while, don;t forget to revisit who you were. Perhaps you will find, you are able to rekindle a long lost romance. With yourself.

Holy & Beautiful

You could have been king. Won gold, won land, battalions of soldiers and several new queens and a harem full of women.

You could have been the chief queen and ended a war.

You could have been the president of a nation and led your country to glorious heights.

You could have been an artist and been the joy of several admirers in their houses and museums and galleries.

You could have been an actress and led a life of glamour and so many people would either love you or envy you or do both.

You could have been famous.

You could have been very rich.

You could have been a teacher and changed several lives for the better, sharing what you know to so many young minds.

You could have been an industrialist and spoken on talk shows and discussed your opinions in public.

You could have been the most important thing on this planet right now and you could have made your way into history and Wikipedia.

But you are sitting inside these four walls and not chasing these several possibilities and there are perhaps only one or two people who you can really be everything to. You can sit there in peace, breathe and know that the air smells of fresh rain and the slight woody mustiness of wet earth and feel waves of happiness overwhelm you because in all likelihood, you are the only one who captured this moment of rainy abandon in a moment that will never come back again. And that alone holds the power to make your purpose on this planet holy and beautiful.