Winters are Love

Many people say spring is the season of love.

It isn’t.

Spring is the season of pollen allergies & hay fever.

Winter is actually the season of love. Yes, I know there are way too many people out there who see winters as a time of gloom & doom. They see winters as the time when you are cooped up in your houses because it’s too cold to go out. Yes, I do know people like that; I’m not ashamed; although I think I should be.

But winters is a time to spread the love. Winters are for hugs. Winters are for cuddling. & I mean those in the most beautiful & honest forms of the gestures. Winters are about grabbing a horror movie, grabbing a cup of hot cocoa & climbing into a blanket all bundled up in sweaters already along with a friend. Winters are about sharing silent moments with your family in front of the heaters, reading books. Although my family is never quiet long enough to enjoy a ‘silent moment’, but we still have those, albeit very short. Winters are about going huddling close together while you are out, in the ‘bitter’ cold, just to save whatever is left.

Winters are all about love, people. & they are passing by VERY fast this time. Kindly stop being gloomy about them & go out & share some of that love! <3

Here's to The Friends

Have you ever counted the number of friends that you have? & I don’t mean the people that laugh & kid around with you. I mean the people who will actually be there to catch you when you fall, the people who will spend the night holding you while you cry your heart out over a small heartbreak (all heartbreaks seem HUGE at the time, but in retrospect, they become tiny milestones which were necessary for you to become a stronger person), the people who will drive around with you all over the city just because you can’t find the right pair of shoes. Have you ever counted how many of these you have in your life? I have. &, even though I should be, I’m not surprised by the number. I’m happy. After all, the lesser the number, the fewer birthdays I actually have to bring presents to. Being a people’s person, when you don’t have many people who you can truly call your own, you think to yourself, is it because there’s some flaw in your personality that you aren’t aware of or is it because people don’t have a knack of looking & recognizing perfection. Then you laugh to yourself, “Sheesh! Perfection, such a vague concept, & yet so revered.” But at the same time, you feel gratitude, & a feeling of intense love for the people who drove around the city with you for that stupid pair of shoes that you wore only once & then put away in some corner & forgot.

So here’s to that friend who held me tight while I wailed at the injustice of it all, & to the friend who made me coffee to sooth the pain, & to the friend who made sure I studied at least enough to pass my tests, & to the friend who never failed to point out why “they didn’t deserve you”, & to the friend who sat with me on the rooftops in the cold weather just to enjoy the view, & to the friend who gave me a secret of theirs to keep.

& here’s to the friendships that haven’t changed, but only aged, like good wine.

A Near Shakespearian Love

There are moments in time, very brief pauses in the monotony of my thought, when I think to myself; ‘Maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be so hard.’ But then the moment passes, & once again the only thing that I’m left with is my inability to understand the causes that led up to the demise of the love I thought I had for everything that lives & breathes. Not the Shakespearian love, I’m sorry, I’m not that much of a romantic. But considering my own personal bounds of romance, I wished everyone to be loved. To be loved, after all, is mankind’s most primal of needs; to be loved, to be accepted, to be cared for. But then, one day I woke up, & I realized, this world does not care for the poets & painters that remember the ashes to once have been a burning desire, I realized this world only cared for the bankers & the economists whose love for green was limited to only the ink on paper that makes it so precious to the world. & that is the day I realized that I, being the poet & the painter, & everyone in that context, am wasted on this world that sees not but one color, that knows not but only one kind of ‘love’.

Yet, I use my words today to tell you that my love for you is still strong, still haunting, and still very much alive. Because this love is who I am, this love is my identity; this is love is my all. I write to tell you that I am the poet & the painter. & whenever you feel the need to be loved, return to me, because it is for you that I am alive. Without you, my love is lost. & so am I.

TOO MUCH CAKE!

My New Year’s resolution is the same as it has been for the past 10 years; lose enough weight so that people actually notice. But, as luck would have it, every year I end up eating too much cake & drinking too many “sugar-shots” (otherwise known as carbonated drinks). What can I say, the baking world loves me, a bit too much.

All of us have a list of things that we want to do at the start of the year, which gets recycled at the start of every year. Come on, admit it, you haven’t achieved much of what you wanted over the past 5 years. Yeah, yeah, let it out, cry a little, we’re all losers here.

There are certain things that I wanted to achieve, that I haven’t come close to doing over the past years. But, as they say, hope springs eternal. Some of the things I wanted to do, as crazy as they are, I would like to share, to inspire you & to prove that; NO! You are not the craziest person on the planet.

1. Lose a noticeable amount of weight.
2. After weight loss, go shopping for uber hot clothes.
3. Also after weight loss, get a complete makeover.
4. Also after weight loss, start meditating every day.
5. Also after weight loss, plan hiking trips to stay fresh & energized.
6. Also after weight loss, go on a Caribbean cruise.
7. Also after weight loss, plan a Euro trip, with the family.
8. Also after weight loss, learn some new dance form.
9. Also after weight loss, wait for Mr. Perfect to come knocking on the door.

So, do you see what the problem is here? TOO MUCH CAKE, I tell you. Who invented cake anyway? I dare you to tell me who it was. & tell me how much that guy weighed. It might console me a bit, JUST a bit. & maybe if he weighs too much, I’ll convince myself that cake is a bad thing. But I hope cake doesn’t take it the wrong way.

I would like to take this opportunity to formally pledge my allegiance to cake, although I might have to lay off it for a bit, but cake should know that I shall always love it & it will be forever in my heart, if not in my tummy.

Now which one of you wants some “carrot cake”-minicupcake-thingys?! xD

You Ask Me...

You ask me the colors I see in the rainbow. But you never ask me the colors I see on a plain piece of paper, or on a whiteboard, or even in a stray cloud.

You ask me to distinguish your voice from the noise in the crowd. But you never ask me to tell you what your silence says to me.

You ask me to define life while looking at a song bird. But you never ask me about the life I see in an unmolded piece of clay.

You ask me of the love I feel for you.But you never tell me whether it is truth that you seek or merely something that would please your senses & satisfy the innate hunger that you feel inside yourself when you can’t find yourself even when you are staring at yourself in the mirror.

Words for Winter

Crisp autumn chill. Fiery red leaves crunching under my feet. A steaming mug of coffee. An intriguing novel in my hand. The winter sun. An hour spent lazily on the porch. Hot, boiling shower. Sweaters & socks. Lunch downtown. Cold, freezing rain. Running for shelter. Hot chocolate, & popcorn. Horror movie on cable. Two friends, huddled up on the couch. Chills, both from the movie & the weather.

Winter days – True love.