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Letter from the Past to the Present
To
My Ex-Boyfriend
Address Unknown
Dated – 2 Years after we broke up
Hey honey,
I hope I can still call you honey. I don’t know now if I have the right or if it’ll create complications in your new life. But trust me this is the only way I can actually address you. I am not writing this letter to curse you or to wish you ill-luck. Had those been the reason I would have gone like so many others to the numerous ‘Miracle-Men” who are found in abundance in this god-forsaken country. But no, I m not here for all that. I m not even here to extend an olive-branch or as your current partner might believe, to seduce you or to lure you over to my side. I m writing this to you because of one simple reason. I miss you. More than missing you as my boyfriend, I miss my best friend
All it took from you was the one single sentence, “it’s over” and it seemed that my whole world came crumbling apart. I won’t deny that we both had seen it coming in the long run but you know how much of an optimist I really am and somewhere down the line, I chose to believe that even though this fragment of the relationship was over, the friendship will remain. When we broke up, it seemed that I had hit rock-bottom emotionally, but when we ceased to be friends, that’s when I knew there was something beyond the so-called rock bottom. But that was not the worst part. The worst part was that you were not there to fish me out of that abyss. In the past whenever I fell, you were there to pick me up. I was so totally dependent on you that I realized at that point of time, that had my friends not been so understanding, I would have probably become suicidal. My gals picked me up or rather what parts were left of me and gradually tried re-introducing me to life. But as hard as they tried nothing could fill the void, the void that was left by you. Gradually I started dating again. But those are just dates. I wasn’t friends with them before, so the void still remains I guess and it will remain there I guess, for somewhere deep down, I lack the courage to date a friend again.
These past few years have been hard, but I knew what I had bargained for. I bear no grudges. I just bear the ramblings. Was it really that easy for you to just forget what we had? Or do you too have a large void in your life? Does a random stranger on the street make your heart skip a beat too? Does a certain song bring back a fond memory? Did moving away from where I was geographically make the transit easy for you? Above all, do you miss your best friend too? The reason I mustered up the courage to write this to you today is because today I know I can survive. Yes I have rejoined social networks and yes I have stopped asking people about you. But as I sign off I just want you to know that I miss you even today and I care for my best friend even today. So I implore you to grant me one last request. Let’s be friends again, if not best friends.
With best regards and warm memories,
Your Girl friend of the past
Growing Up
How do you know that you have grown up? That is probably a question the answer to which eludes us. Most of us we don’t even know if we have grown up. But at times, you do feel that you are no longer a child. So when does that happen? Do we know that we have grown-up when we stop believing in Santa Claus? Or is it when we realise that Cinderella was just another love-story? When we realise that love at first sight may not necessarily have a happy ending? Or is it when we realise that there’s more to a person than just his looks? Is it when we have to find time for our parents? Or is it when our relationships actually need work? Is it when we stop trusting in people? Is it when we reminisce a lot about the past but hesitate to pick up the phone and call our friend? Or is it when life starts being governed by the society? Is it when all we look for is not money or materials, but just a person to go home to at the end of the day?
The truth is all these are things are a part and parcel of growing up. These we can still alter, with a little extra effort. I feel that we actually grow up when we realise that good-byes are inevitable. When we learn to accept that all good things will come to an end, that‘s when we actually grow up. We are not saddened by the thought of an ending because we know that the ending is not really an ending but another beginning. This is however solely my opinion.
To have a varied take on the subject, I asked a few of my friends, when they feel grown-up and we came up with a few collective thoughts: some deeply reflective, some just light-hearted philandering.
- We have grown up when we start dreading the future.
- When we start saying goodbye to alcohol and drugs
- When we realise that we are happy with our life
- When we say goodbye without a tear
- When we try to find joy in little things of life
And finally when we start thinking with our mind and not our hearts… WE Have Grown Up.
P.S- If you have said goodbye to bubblewrap and “Tom n Jerry”, that doesn’t mean you have grown up, it just means that you have become a machine.
Also if your newsfeed is clogged with photos of all your friends getting married or having kids, it means you have really grown old. 😛
Being Single
Statutory Warning; This post is not meant for all those people who believe that one’s single because one had no other options.
This post is definitely not about the rantings of a singleton. Personally I don’t mind being single even if it means that I have reached an age where my Facebook Timeline has been clogged with wedding pictures or pictures of first-borns. Neither is this an invitation to the many nosy Aunts to scour out reasons as to why I m single. I had realised long back that the only reason that one was single was possibly because they are very comfortable with it. What irritates me the most, is when people try finding out the exact reason why you are single because ‘single by choice ‘ is a concept that eludes many.
This is why I decided to dig a little and make a list of all the reasons that have ever been sited to me or my friends as the etiology of our
‘singleness”
1.You are too Independent
– Yes living in a country which has crossed more than 60 years of independence, one still expects me to be dependent. Hypocrisy at it’s best. And, since when has independence been a negative thing? I mean were I a guy, I would have been very happy to find a girl who could take care of herself
2. You are over-educated.
-and here I thought that over-educated was not even a word. But apparently it is and one that is used in abundance. In the Indian scenario the concept is still that the guy should hold a degree more than the girl and that is the only reason a relation flourishes.Translated loosely it can mean I want my paycheck to be bigger than yours
3. You are too intimidating
-translation for this is roughly that you know what to do with your life and how you want it to be done. You are not going to let me treat you as a doormat
4.You have too many guy friends
-this can translate in many ways ranging from I-don’t-wanna-risk-being-bashed-up-by-your-guy-friends-should-we-break-up-in-future to I-am-not-sure-about-your-sexual-orientation (or mine for that matter)
5. You don’t behave like a girl
-translating as I want a girl who doesn’t challenge my authority and who will always be available to accompany me wherever I want to go. I can safely take her to parties and stuff because she won’t drink or talk freely to people and most importantly she ll always seek my approval before doing anything
6. You are too honest
translating as- I don’t want you to tell me about the various previous relationships you have been in because then I would have to tell you about mine.
7. You are not traditional/too traditional
-translates to I-don’t-know-myself-what-I-want. I’ll settle for what my family wants for me.
And finally this one’s a winner actually.
8. You are not marriage material
-as if this is a vital ingredient to life. Like ‘we can’t make pie because there’s no flour or something’
Moral of the story- there will always be people who try and make you feel guilty of your choices and your decisions. What’s important is you be happy.
Call me, Maybe??
The other day we were talking about relationships and how it all works. And obviously, at one point the topic had to veer towards long-distance ones. ” Define long distance” , one of my friends asked . This was something I had no idea about. I mean how to define long distance.
“Not the same city? “, I ventured. and there I was enlightened.
According to the norms there are several kinds of long-distance relations.
Firstly… if you are in the same country…
Chances are that it might just work. You both are in the same time-zone. You both are celebrating the same festivals. Call rates are cheaper.( As are domestic flight rates.)
Second if you are on same continent
That might work too.. Especially since the mobile phones do have discounted tariffs for neighboring countries. Also you are more or less in the same time-zone.
Third is if you are within 6 hrs time-difference zones
Chances are slim. But the glass may be seen as half-full
Last -the time difference s 12 hrs
No matter how determined you are or how many Nicholas Sparks books you have read… Chances are it isn’t going to happen.
And here I directly quote my friend, “You cannot have a relation with your phone or Skype. You do need the person in real world , not virtual”
When Princesses grow up
An odd thing to say ,let alone write about. But it is something which every single father-daughter relationship goes through. I remember a very popular saying as i write about this. It goes something like, “there’s one guy in every girl’s life who sets a benchmark for all the men in her life” of course true to form, most of the guys assumed it was the first boy-friend/crush/love but no guys.. that’s not who we refer to. We are invariably referring to our dad!
While growing up , Dads are the only guys in a girl’s life and he makes sure that she’s the only ‘girl’ in his life too. so what,if he has a wife! his daughter is the apple of his eye, his little princess, the one who must be shielded from all the evils. and so the Dad stands tall like a fortress between you and the world. And the daughter on her part adores her Dad. It’s not something that is taught to us. No! its something that we are born with because I can wager that no man and I mean no man can ever treat a girl as nicely as she has been treated by her dad.
And then one day you grow up! you are off to college. You are off to shielding yourself by yourself. You are ready to take on the world but well there’s one small glitch to this plan. -Your Dad. see, you may have grown up from your barbies and fairy-tales but your Dad unfortunately hasn’t. For him you are still that toddler who needs to hold his finger. the biggest example of this is my Dad. just the other day , he told me “come,we ll go shopping and I ll buy u a nice frock and ice-cream afterwards” I know most of you will go , “ya, so?” and so let me tell you.1. the last time i wore a frock was when i was 9 yrs maybe and 2. I don’t indulge in ice-creams when I m dieting. It just made me realise how out-of-sync with my life my Dad was. So in an effort to “update” him I took him to lunch and we had a really long chat. well it was not that fruitful either because everything was too new to him and he kept referring to the past. I agree that was not a success but at least it was a stepping stone to ….. well i don’t actually know what. because i somehow got a feeling he was not going to accept this change.
Well i was discussing this issue with my girls and some of them the problem is far worse. One of them decided to break the ice by introducing her boy-friend to her dad. She thought it might work out well ,since her mom already knew about the guy and she was okay with it, Now she describes the incident as “the most horrible decision I ever took” because apparently not only did her Dad not accept the guy ,in the span of one hour he managed to intimidate the guy so much that he started doubting himself and by the time the meeting was over her confident and charming boy-friend had been reduced down to a ‘nervous wreck’ ,as she put it. I believe it took her some time to get her relationship back on track but from what she tells me ‘family events” are something he refuses to attend. Point-blank.
Guess Dads will never take too kindly to the boy-friends or spouses because i think they don’t like the thought of not being the only man in your life.
This also made me realise something else. Remember the incessant times he got on your nerves? by asking you “who,What,Where? when will you be back? whom are u going out with? etc etc? I know it drives most of us nuts and all we feel like is shouting, “i can take care of myself” true . You can take care of yourself. And Yes! he knows that you can too. But i guess it’s just his reflex. He would Rather not see you fall and get hurt . it doesn’t mean that he has no faith in you or he doesn’t trust your capabilities. It just means that he s scared to see you getting hurt, he still wants to be the fortress.. Just like you unconsciously want to your guy to pamper you like a little princess…
Being 20s
So I thought the great part of being in my twenties would be I would finally get to live life on my own terms.. Not to mention, i would finally get over the tag of ‘a teenager’. Ahhh yes! Life always seemed good in the twenties. You finally got over the phrases like ‘you áre not even twenty’ and ‘when you áre twenty, i ll reconsider’ . Little did I know what I was signing up for..
When I was nineteen, twenty seemed to be a magical place.. It was like peeping through a magic hole.. Everything was magical ( or so it seemed) but now that I am actually in the place, well, it’s not so lucrative actually. Yes, you have a job. And yes you probably don’t have all those restrictions imposed on you. Yes, you can indulge in your favorite cocktail, designer wear, etc without raising eyebrows. You can plan mini get-aways with your friends. Life seems good and in most cases it is.
But like all good things being twenties has a pitfall too. You áre exposed to too much evil (yes! I know I sound positively medieval) . As you grow up you gradually lose the qualities you were always blessed with – like trust! I know most of you have already lost it and you do second-guess every second person’s motives. No point denying it. We ve all done it. Then comes the burden of the society- a society which considers your marriage àn event of utmost importance. If you áre about to cross to the other side of twenty, then God save your soul because every second person will and mark my words will try and set you up. Also you will get to hear ardent comments like, ‘you have a nice face, good height/good income/ good bloodline, it ll be quite easy for you to get a match ‘ . It’s quite the auction ,really. This wedding affair and after a while no matter how much you convince yourself that you áre meant to enjoy the single life, the pressure gets to you and vöila! You áre married. Personally, I never got the concept why 30 is the last accepted age of marriage! Another thing which I despise about being twenties is responsibility- no I m no slacker but somehow responsibility is something which can give even the neighborhood gossiping aunts, a run for their money. I ve personally observed that responsibilities always keep on increasing until you hardly have time to catch a breather between two ”responsibility”. (whoever said with great power comes great responsibility, should rephrase it because without any power also comes the responsibility)
When I was younger, I had more freedom. I dressed and acted the way I pleased! Even as a teenager ,I was quite a rebel. But cross over to the twenty and I tone myself down. Especially when I see teenagers wearing same stuff as I m, that s when I bid adieu to my favourite ‘ripped jeans’ and tees and opt for the more somber (and yes!boring)
Dress pants. God! It just kills me.
So, twentys áre mixed bag . You win some, you lose some. You win hearts, take on the world in your basking glory, but you tend to lose yourself a little bit everyday. Because try as we might, twentys never gives us the time for ‘us.’
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Caste,Creed and Breed
Being a frequent commuter on public transport system, I, like many others of my generation have switched on this very comfortable method of plugging in the earphones and shutting the world out. So imagine my utter dismay when I found my earphones missing on a not-so-fine day . Utterly dejected, I was forced to hear the incessant chatter of two females sitting behind me ( actually I heard a lot of views but more about those later) this particular female had a ‘marrieable’ son and she was telling her friend about the various attributes which were desirable in the bride . One thing which particularly caught my fancy was the term ‘convent-educated’ . I ll admit that I was so intrigued by this bit of information that I did a little research of my own ( in the matrimonial pages of Sunday papers as well as some sites, under pseudo-name I assure you)
What stuck me as odd was the way people áre trying to sell themselves. And no I m not kidding. They actually try and sell themselves. Otherwise tell me, why on earth would you need to mention the father’s occupation or property, for that matter when looking for a suitable bride for The Son. Or why would you need to mention that the girl in question is ”convent-educated’ and slim? No one cares if the girl is convent-educated! I mean what possible attributes does such a girl have which another one doesn’t? Schooling cant determine your character can it? To some extent it might but our characters áre hardly determined by which school we are from. I mean, is there this belief that those girls will be pious and well-behaved as opposed to others? I still can’t find conclusive evidence. Then there áre those who demand slim and fair girls.. I mean if the girl is slim,fair and goodlooking, she would have a better life in a hospitality industry than a house-wife of a very shallow and judgemental man. And what if the girl is dark? Doesn’t she deserve àn equal shot at ”Happiness” ? I guess not. Even the castes áre blatantly mentioned and neatly categorised in alphabetical order. Come on! I mean tell me the significance of the caste. I mean how is important in your marital life? Is it a conclusive proof that certain castes are more fertile than the rest? If that is the case , I wouldn’t object.
Standing at this crossroad of the great Indian marriage circus, I can’t help but wonder, when the time comes will I too, succumb to this ‘Slave Auction’ where I will actually set more weight to the physical attributes of the person rather than the practical.? There’s food for thought!
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Guy friend!
Classify your guy friends.. That’s a question that normally would raise a lot of eye-brows and lets face it here.. Most of the people would react the same way .. I mean what kind of person classifies their friend into category? And I agree with that. You dont and you should’nt too. a friend is a friend. End if the story.. But actually you can classify your guy friends..( actually the guys can do the same,but being the fairer sex I look at things from a women’s prospective) I don’t mean essentially that you should put a tag on them and behave accordingly… But the more I think of it. The more it becomes evident!
There s your best friend- he’s the guy with whom you share everything. He s your guide to everything guy! The guy who helps you through your dates. Who ll take you binge-drink and then ensure that you reach home safe.. The one guy your parents wish you were dating., your gal-friends think you are secretly,you think about it sometimes and whose signals are never clear…
There’s the guy friend whom you always crushed on secretly. But you never tell him ,thinking how it will effect your friendship.. But you go out of your way to ‘protect’ him but somehow the idiot never realises that.. *sigh*
There’s the guy you have known for like eternity probably. And whom you may regard fondly as a kiddo or your pampered brat -like brother.. But hey! I bet you can never think of him as a boy-friend. But more often than none, he happens to be the guy who’s secretly crushing on you! *definitely creepy* (poor soul)
There’s the Protector! ( I have three atleast) whose only aim in life is to see that you are not hurt. Ya! It’s definitely okay if he behaves like a jerk! That’s totally excuseable. But if someone hurts you in anyway, he ll be thirsting for blood and the offender would probably end up with a bloody nose. Oh! And he s also your moral anchor. He ll at times dictate you about the people who are ‘good company’ ,who are not and how you should dress a little more ‘decently’ (dear brother,I ve found your substitute! ) but at the end of the day you still love him looking out for you.
And last is the ‘cool blind dude ‘ . He s your friend for the good stoned times. His solution to your every problem- ‘chill babes.. Have a drink ‘ yup! The eternal dude who doesn’t listen much. Probably comprehends even less. And is not actually bothered by anything anyone says or does. He has a mantra for ‘good life’-eat drink and party. ummm. Why are you friends with him? Because he is just the buffer you need from ‘the spices of life! ‘
Diary of the Twenties 