The Fault in our Stars

​So..

Bhai is getting married.

Dream come True, I would feel.

I am having sudden tears every time I listen to a good song to perform at Sangeet... I don't know... I feel super happy when I finalise a song in my mind... I visualise the choreography, and then smile big for some time and then I get emotional. I had tears right now while traveling in metro.

I am super happy but scared too. I know in my heart that I too will get married but I can not marry in court.

I am full Punjabi at heart and soul and am scared won't get a Lawan fere and Sangeet wali wedding. 

I know marriage is important as it's for life and wedding involves just few functions. So I should not be cribbing for a short lived stuff over a life long blessing of being married. In my mind, I am able to see myself being happily married but I still don't see my family part of my married life. It kind of scares me. That is so not what the biological punjabi child I was seeing; so what the world now has shrunk into small circles. I am still that child, I yet to psychologically grow out of my pre-third grade phase.

Sometime I say to myself that marriage should be about me and that special one whom I will call 'my guy' for life, yet I do question where did I go wrong in myself. I did not chose this, it is just who I was always when I started feeling anything about love outside the other natural relationships called family and friends. My feelings were as instinctive as my heartbeats - it's just there and don't know for how long.

I like a girl being all coy and blushing and smiling and laughing and dancing with me in couple routine. She is a gorgeous creation of God. Just recently I had the pleasure to dance with amazing girl dance on the super romantic "Enna Sona" from "Ok Janu". I still can not get her expressions and smile out of my mind. It was one which I strongly believe makes even the most heartless guys poets.

But that's it. I can try again but I know I did not feel anything beyond. One can watch a beautiful painting or even a picturesque spot, natural or man made, but sooner or later you would want to move on and take a thankful breadth which is best done when shared with someone special. It is not all about sex, but companionship and that love, after all.

I have cease to be vicarious. It's just dreams of the hearts that don't cease to leave me.

This time, that I am living, was, is and will always be one of a time; that will never repeat even for a second. And these tears, better be out that in me, no matter how painful to my body and heart. I don't want to live with them. I don't want to live with them. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

I am better than an underling. I am better than this. I am a proud Punjabi and love my Big Family Life.

Wedding Vows or Woes?

"Sometimes you realise the journey you've been taking has reached its final stop. So the question becomes, where do you go next."

Lord knows how this dreamy eyed kid has always loved everything about weddings. Indeed there has been time when I dressed shabbily to a wedding a child to protest, albeit silently, about my pathological need to dress up like Prince Charming at the wedding in new dress or at least all wedding-y. But I have never ever felt bad at a wedding. I always loved showering attention to the bride and/or groom and their families and even the guests, by being my charming self, even if that meant dancing, which I always did with my heart-out loud.

Weddings makes me feel good, no matter the extravagant or the simple they are. They make me feel good because it is the most joyous moment in life; it is always meant to be so, no matter the culture or generation you belong to. Bringing a life to this world in the form of a child, be it first or another number, is precious but wedding is one which is for lifetime - not even children are for lifetime; they will have to eventually move on.

Why I am being that little kid all over again?

-- The little kid who was all smiles riding the horse with his Mother's brother on his wedding, even as the kid's elder brother was too scared to do same.

-- The little kid who eventually feels he literally grew up on wedding in family to ultimately mean Delhi Cantonment Gurudwara for Anand Karaj and Lavan Phere, apart from the wedding ground opposite the Gurudwara & the Taj Group of Hotels for Wedding Receptions and all thing wedding-y.

-- The little kid who still has the first suit he ever wore, apparently at Ishu mamu's reception. I can still feel the settings of the reception, the entry gate decked with flowers, the dance floor, the relatives and my love with dance floor in my very first suit.

-- The little kid feels happy to know about the wedding of anyone, be it a celebrity. And feels a kick knowing that he is writing this on the 9th Marriage Anniversay of Abhishek & Aishwarya Bachchan - two human beings so far away from his reality but still feel happy to have lived their wedding.

-- The little kid who has growing up feeling Aww whenever he seeing a smiling couple. It's like I am all the while expanding islands of relationship-goals, Inside-Out.

That little kid is now 27 year old, attending weddings of close friends and even school junior, for whom he always felt brotherly love. He still gets a smile of affection and love from the friends and parents for being an attendee; not to mention the relatives tell him to be in other functions as "who will dance if you won't come; you dance very good."

That little kid was always responsible, for his family and for his teachers and for the neighbors and for the relatives. He was never reckless like other kids his age. He was dreamy but never careless.

In all these years, the little kid grew old in age, but being responsible and careful did made him miss out on the childhood every child is meant to live. Fall down playing, get into fight with mates, have a broken limb or nose or dark eye, throw tantrums to get gifts and toys and bags and clothes, get scolded by teacher, break furniture in school, get handed over with a yellow card (a BBPS aka my school, thing for wrong doers) light firecrackers in schools and colleges, abuse and then quickly make up with besties, be carefree, make friends in society/ neighborhood, and just be a regular child.

The little kid who missed all still lives in me and as Anant, a friend I made on social network, shared about that kid once to me, he is still not outgrowing in me for me to live my age. I do live my age, but the kid still yearns to break free.

Which brings me to the Present..

I had been down with Chicken Pox since past two weeks (almost) but the disease is over now and only the weakness remains. Yet, I did made fair time to attend Karan's Cocktail and Wedding (2 day programme) and Mahak's Sangeet last night - all in three nights in a row.

However, back from Karan's wedding last night and the random little chat on stage when Karan said, "it's your number now" ended up a huge sentence for me. I could not sleep easy last night, woke up late, only to be emotionally weak and breaking my certain wank pact to self.

Not that I don't want my number to be next, but I am scared when will it be. I am very scared.

I was down with a similar feeling after Ankita's wedding last November but the realisation of being the last single one standing with married friends really got into me after coming home and lying on my bed all alone.

Ever since my school days, I have been literally called by girls and even some of my friends aka classmates that I will be the best husband and father. I still remember one of my teacher later told me at a reunion that the faculty thought of me as the student who will be the first to get married in his batch.

It is a huge compliment and will always be for me and I am not scared to live up to it. But now as I see it, I feel my reality was way far beyond what all these people saw in me - my reality of dreams and a lot of times, nightmares.

I was all happy at Karan's wedding but ending up in despair. Why, you ask me? I guess, correction, I really want to be in that wedding chair and looking at the guests. Earlier, I felt I want a wedding, but it is the marriage I dream for. I also want to be one half of the cute couple and I am not a bad person to not deserve it. I am scared of when.

I really feel that my moment will do come. I am scared that the same kid whom everyone loves, gets alone and aloof from his society where he thrives his energy from.

I am scared I will break hearts among people I know because I am gay. I can not break hearts, for that kid loves winning hearts and he will never out grow rightly if he breaks hearts. Kids are supposed to get "Awws" and "Hugs" even in their mischief. That little kid want to, correction - need to grow old with those "Awws" and "Hugs". That little kids needs to grow old normally. And being normally does not mean ordinary. I am an extraordinary normal kid.

I will keep attending the weddings, as at the end of the day they are not meant for guests like me, but for the couple. I will feel blessed, maybe selfishly, to be a reason even for a moment of smile on the couple's and their family and friend's faces. It makes me feel happy; no matter how scared I feel. The moment is bigger that my wedding woes.

Just that I don't want to lose any of these friends. That really scares me. Especially when the universe somehow end on throwing me with a new song about the same feeling.

The song below (by "The Head and the Heart") is one I came across an emotional episode of "How I Met Your Mother" just last afternoon, while being in my most vulnerable and emotional "wedding woes" place.

A year from now we'll all be gone
All our friends will move away
And they're goin' to better places
But our friends will be gone away

Nothin' is as it has been
And I miss your face like hell
And I guess it's just as well
But I miss your face like hell

Been talkin' 'bout the way things change
And my family lives in a different state
If you don't know what to make of this
Then we will not relate
So if you don't know what to make of this
Then we will not relate

Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers 'til I reach you

I love being all out out for my friends on their special day and always wish to make it more special for them in whatever way possible. 

Words fall short to define the song for the Ted Mosbey in me. For Ted loves all things wedding-y - He is the best man for wedding speeches, is best friend to many and is all probability, the nicest guy around. But it took him years of "Rivers and Roads" to reach his own wedding.

I know I am still traveling the "Rivers and Roads". I am just scared to fall apart in the journey; fall lonely in the journey. I can not and will not live with wedding woes; for weddings are meant to only go with vows, be it for that little kid or the 27 year old grown up.

The Wedding Vows!

The Suicide Letter

जब जब दर्द का बादल छाया..

जब ग़म का साया लहराया.

जब आंसू पलकों तक आया..

जब ये तनहा दिल घबराया..

हमने दिल को यह समझाया दिल आखिर तू क्यूं रोता है.. दुनिया में यूं ही होता है ।

यह जो गहरे सन्नाटे है.. वक़्त ने सब्को ही बाटें है..

थोडा ग़म है सबका किस्सा.. थोड़ी धूप है सबका हिस्सा..

आग तेरी बेकार ही नम है.. हर पल एक नया मौसम है..

क्यूं तू ऐसे पल खोता है.. दिल आखिर तू क्यों रोता है ।।

Its weird how I am beginning a suicide letter with a positive thought but If I may put it as a mere coincident that my phone's playlist began with same during my writing, yet no one can ever disagree that isn't every suicide letter started with the most positive light of one's life..

Dear Mom Dad..

Add to same the immense strength and great self-understanding it takes to write a suicide letter; the second greatest an individual can ever show in life, the first being at the time of the actual act of committing suicide.

However here I stand struggling to write one suicide letter of mine; all in a public declaration.

I write same, keeping in mind a very thought provoking motivational quote by Gore Vidal, an American writer and Public Intellectual (whatever the latter means):

"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note."

So here I formally, informally begin:

...

Dear Mom Dad..

I love you a lot, no matter the many times I have hated you, felt embarrassed by even your existence in my every breathing moment. You are my mom and dad and will always be my mother and father. And your undying love and wishes for me is what makes me angry and extremely temperamental in my expression of love for you and to an extent, with bhai also. I know you all love me and maybe its just not you.

Papaji, Maanji, Naniji, and by God's grace many others I am blessed with in family and friends. Like Priya, who has always been at the end of my moods, the most among all my friends and yet stood by me, wishing nothing but the world for me. And this love and bliss is what has always driven me to end my life because I am tired of not even knowing who I really am to decide how to reciprocate. Frustratingly strange indeed when I wrote in the beginning how it takes "immense strength and understanding it takes to write a suicide letter".

Ever since the past few years when I first developed HOSH in my JOSH for life, I have just wanted a normal life. Yes I have dreams and career goals but I want to be normal. And I am not able to understand what is normal to me, what is natural to me. This suicide letter germed from same insecurity; of the war in my soul to know the real and natural me.

I am living a dream career which I recognised by exploring my own strenghts and weaknesses through work and many bruised fallings but at the end of the day I enjoy my time in office to the extent that can leave workplace with a meditation state of mind, heart and soul. But as I age, I fear all wrongs I wished in anger in my life. I fear living a life from a plague thought tongue of past. I fear my sexuality taking my life. I fear being gay.

"I fear being gay."

Shocking, is what I am now feeling as I continue giving words to my thoughts. Never ever did I use this sentence, even in my worst nightmares. Then why did it came in my head to find a typed memory?

After years of struggles, from sixth standard, to be precise, to the moment before I wrote these four self-shocking words, I was thinking that I have made peace with me being gay, which is by the way just a part of my life in the gamut of emotional diversity in my character and personality. But Now I stand more tired than ever.

I am not ashamed of myself. I feel scared, disgusted from me fearing the wrongs that my true self can bring upon in questions and, God forbid, in taunts (also) to all my loved ones.

I really wish I could swing permanently in life but even after tremendous torturous periods of excruciatingly mental and physical pain (that continue till this very moment as I write), I do know this is me - not completely gay, not really gay, but just gay. And I don't want this to be the 'only me', which I feel is only possible if I let myself go from the worry.


Dear Mom Dad..

Writing this letter, my mind is inundated with the thought that truth be told I have failed in a lot of things in life but why when it comes to suicide, all my reasons for suicide are always and always falling on my most private part of life - Being Gay!

It's human nature to worry about the unknown and this feeling can never be curbed, I guess. I do also worry about the unknown as I am also human. But why is it that every time I worry about something, it is about me Being Gay at the crux of all worries.

Its like my whole life is absorbed in just these four words:

"I fear being gay."

I want to share this suicidal part of me, but not to transfer my worries but only to release my worries. For the Buddhist said it wisely, "Till we don't empty our filled cup of mind, we can not explore filling it with anything new. And anything poured in the filled cup will only spill on the sides and it will show in serving."


Dear Mom Dad..

I love you and I only wish to see you happy and proud of me. I don't know what the future holds and how much, buy my present is here for you. And its full of insecurities I have been dying to pour my heart out.

I fear driving, because I think I won't look good driving.

I fear my friends, because they were only filled with lies by me, lies which were very well crafted, to hide my true self.

I fear going out even in our neighborhood meeting the neighbor,because I think I won't be able to stand as a proud man, despite my little achievements.

I fear all our relatives, including you, Mom and Dad, because I won't be the perfect child who grew up to be traditionally married with children, upholding the family's honor.

I have started to fear my office mates because they think I am the perfect catch for a girl because of what I am in front of them but isn't half truth also a stab in the back?

I fear internet, becuase despite it giving me tremendous space to grow, I may got over the lust for sex, but I feel helpless in watching porn. I am addicted to it and it shows on my health. I watch it feeling all I am not in terms of a man. Strange but true, I fear I am not a man - even a gay man. And yet,

"I fear being gay."

Dear Mom Dad..

It was about three years back when during a documentary shoot for a gay aquaintance I realised how happy I am when I am really myself.

I had to speak in front of the camera how I feel about the straight people around me; sort of like tossing the coin on the question of how straight people feel about gays around them. I was told to be funny in my replies but oblivious to how to be funny, I just went with the flow.

By the end of my shoot - in central park - all in open, I was smiling and so were the two girls in production team, the straight cameraman who was my age and the other gay stud who was next in line to be interviewed.

I still can not recall when was a time before this moment when I felt happy about my self as I was feeling that time. I still remember even the straight camera guy became very relaxed with me after the shoot, during the lunch. It made me happy about myself/

The documentary never got made because of some unforeseen circumstances but I am glad I did muster up the courage to shoot, even though it was way more rebel than courage; for Priya and Manish did warn me of 'future' consequences if the documentary, being made for film festivals, became public.

The shoot remains one of the best and definitely the only memory I have of being "out of closet" without any fear. Then why do i fear being gay?

Dear Mom Dad..

The shoot was in April 2012. So technically it will be three whole years in three months from today since that happy memory. And thus it has been since, that I have been trying to come out. But alas sigh...

Dear Mom Dad..

You have brought me up in a very 'responsible' state of mind from my very childhood, and for that I am eternally thankful and emotionally indebted to you. So it excites me and scares me in equal and extreme level that I wish to give you all the happiness in future. It kills me every closeted moment of my life that I won't be able to give you a daughter-in-law and grandchildren in the traditional way. It kills me even more seeing bhai not doing anything to fulfill that dream from his side.

I am scared because of bhai.. but am I right to be same for him? Am I being too selfish to put the responsibilty on his shoulder or am I justified to at least expect this little from him?

I have this faith in me that I will find my true love forever. The day I will find peace with my true self, I know I will find him. Just like one of my most favorite quote for life,

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.” 

I don't want to come out in anger and frustration, and a temporary state of mind. I want to be happy and satisfied with myself when I come out; with a genuine emotional coming of age understanding and acceptance of self.

I don't need a job security to come out.

I don't need dropping hints to come out.

I don't need my forever love to come out.

I don't need the world to be accepting of gays to come out.

I do need to drive my new car out of my garage and into the traffic, without worrying about the red lights in my path or the rash drivers who may hurl abuses on my for my driving ability and may even leave scratches on my car.

I just need to drive my car. I really do, but I am scared.

"I fear being gay."

Dear Mom Dad..

I want to share something today; something I am not able to control and is killing me, keeping me awake all night.

I feel alone in my room. Very lonely. It's like I need a hug and I don't have. I never really hugged you as a child and I have now grown up feeling an absence in me. I think of hugging you so many times but I just can not.

I feel because I was brought up listening "the responsible child" adjective for me, I unknowingly developed a shell of emotionless person who can take harsh decision even without the blink of an eye.

Mom you yourself did tell me I am heartless but I guess that is how I grew up. In obscurity, especially during my middle and high school days, alone in the second floor room - not into sports - in my dreams - and even struggling with my initial days of puberty when I could only think and feel gay.

I really used to blame you both for ignoring me and turning me gay but with better sense I really realised that it was no one's fault I am gay. I mean, I have pondered over my past to such lengths that it is futile for me to even think more about my past.

However I can do share how I have grown up as a gay person.

Phase 1: REBEL for LUST:

I started as a rebel. I was young blood. I really wanted to get the first sex thing out of my system. After a few unplanned innocent encounters with school mates and in relations, I was the sex freak who just wanted it at any cost. I like the attention I was getting from the gay circuit.

Phase 2: GREED:

The rebel streak grew into challenger when I quite literally wanted to get anyone whom I can not get by going every extreme. It was during this time when I was first proposed of love and the idea of moving in with that person with his new job in a new city (not Delhi). I got scared here and ducked that person, even though he was the sweetest. I still feel really bad about how badly I ignored him to get rid of him from my life. I wish I can wash my bad karma from this incident; I really I already have.

Phase 3: OVERCONFIDENCE KILLS:

This I would like to say the time I got a bit matured from the love incident. I started to think who I am and what do I really want for future with such a character. But the start of self observant nature brought the most painful and temperamental side of me. It really confused me; making me run for sex to punish me for my deeds. I was never happy in sex during this phase. I cried a lot, cursing Waheguru, feeling like an atheist. It really made me lose some of the golden opportunities during my stint at BVB. I could have really scaled great heights with the support of the college teachers and my friends but I failed to capitalise it. It was extremely painful.

Phase 4: FIRST TRUE LOVE:

This was after my BVB and a few freelancing work when I fell in love for the first time. I proposed him over phone, saying the most non rehearsed lines that, "you made me love those things in me which I have always hated as you love me completely." Our relationship was really short, not even a month. But it was our every night conversation which made me fell alive like I had never been. But then he cheated, I shouted in anger and pain and agony. It really felt like the end of the world.

Phase 5: NO TIME FOR SELF:

This started just after the heartbreak. I was lucky to get start my theater the very next morning of heart break night. I let go all my anger in theater, got myself completely emersed in this professional life, from weekend theater to daily round the clock 7 days a week, 365 days an year theater. Occasionally I started exploring gay party circuit, trying to find like minded persons to laugh with also. So it was all work, even the parties were extreme work..with lots of drinking and drugs (the lighter ones only) in life.

Phase 6: REALISING BUILDING CAREER:

I loved every minute of theater. It made me confident about myself, introducing me to a Guru for life, friends and team mates who never lied to me. But I had to end it to begin what I really wanted to do for life, as a career. If only wishes were horses and I could have never grown old, I would have never left Asmita. But being brought up as a "responsible child", I had a responsibility to be a man of successful career and life. So I left with the biggest lump of heart in my throat. I had decided on journalism after many lists, both in mind and on paper that had many options which were scratched to a final one. There were options like Acting, Modeling, Porn Star, Traveller and Politician that still remain on the list as I hope to achieve them with dedication and a clarity of mind. But all this took many months of self loathing, a short stint at gym, a not so happy but inspiring time at a call centre and many heated rebel moments at home.

Phase 7: FINDING LIKE MINDED by BEING LIKE MINDED:

It was a probably the most confusing, yet my first true Coming of Age Phase. Some two years after BVB, I first realised my overconfidence in my abilities and a strage relying on luck when I went for TVTMI interview without any preparation. Rahul Kanwal Sir failed me badly. But mom dad suggested ISOMES through an advertisement on News 24. I went there, along with Indian Express, cleared both with average to good self analysis but chose News 24's ISOMES for I wanted visual media. The college started good but it started falling apart, with exams and strange fight on self presentation and sexuality. I realised I wanted to be with like minded and only interacted with gay friends, even without sex. I was almost hating the straight guys. But realisation of my actions through my straight friends and teachers, all oblivious to my gay self, made me this time act on changing it all. For the first time I was being with the world in all its imperfections. I was learing and growing and not scared of failing for I knew I will only learn from even that unwanted failure. I was actually growing up normally. I made friends in college that I still love, because they accepted me in my imperfections. I started my career in journalism and earned a goodwill of hardworker, even if not the most talented. Slow and steady to not just win but even enjoy the race with my past negative self.

Phase 8: LAYING PATH FOR COMING OUT:

After an amazingly lifting phase, this one will without doubt remain the most unexpected phase of my life. Unlike in the previous phase where I wanted to stay only with gay friends and contacts for I was hating how straight people treat and mock us, in here I was hating to be in and around straight world for I was hating myself to not being myself and whom I truly am. Hating for being not being myself. Hating to lie and hide about myself, as if I am ashamed of it. All of it probably made me unconsciously feel,

"I fear being gay."

I am however fighting this fear, meeting friends and relatives by finding all the courage I can. I am struggling and I really need strength to not be a failure, else this suicide note chance of becoming my farewell letter in reality.

I really want, correction - I really need to begin my Phase 9 with all my loved ones around. I want my parents, my bhai, my friends, Papaji, Manji, Naniji, Mamu, Micky Mami, Mona Masi, Lady Maasi and everyone - all in the pink of their health. I dont want to lose anyone. I am scared but I am really praying. Please Babaji.

Dear Mom Dad..

This letter has become quite a long one, but what is this meek length in front of the more than 26 years of my life, which today stands at 9671th Day of my Life. I need to do a lot of things but I need patience more to do everything right and just. Forgive me everything for the past; I really love you.

“Everyone believes the world's greatest lie..." says the mysterious old man.
"What is the world's greatest lie?" the little boy asks.
The old man replies, "It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.”

Dear Mom Dad..

You will always be loved. Please forgive me for taking this step. The Phase 9 may be OUT PHASE but for a 10/10 with Phase 10, I know it will be FORVER LIFE.

Please forgive me. I don't want to feel nervous, ashamed, disgusted. This suicide note is my heart to you, which loves you a lot, no matter how rarely I may have said so to you in person. If I able to think even this much, it's because you are my parents. Sorry for letting you down in any and every way possible. I never really breathed for it.

Your son

Bhavdeep Singh Chadha

Protect Me From What I Want?

Frustrated; yet Hopeful!

If someone tells me this, and asks me to try finding an english word from the limited vocabulary I know of, I will use the word 'Bipolar' and this scares me to cries of the soul even as I continue typing every single character of this post.

I have forgotton account of the number of days since I have been coming back from work and end up feeling lonely in my own house, in my own room. For the longest I have been telling myself and few ears that I could that anything and everything wrong with my life is because of my bad Karma; and that God is testing me to extreme, That supreme power won't give me so much of pain if I could not handle it, or if I did not do this bad in my life. But its frustrating; it feels like every self belief being sucked out of my system now.

रब्बा मेरे कभी दर पे तेरे, कभी बुला तेरी चौकठ पे..

देदे और जो दर्द हो बाकी, रुला मुझे रज रज के..

Don't know how much of life is left for the saturation point of my inner cries. I don't want to sound like a whiny kid. Just yesterday only, I had those dreamy though at work that "Is this all really True or a Dream". Definitely not the first time and I hope it never ends because it does brings a smile on my face. I am living my dream and I hate co-relating my dream life with a "But". Its frustrating.

Over the past few days, even as I continue to feel completely shatteered at my helplessness to come out (pun intended) of my dilemma, I have been thinking of ways to share my true self. However questions continue to loom on in my mind, for instance:

Am I being selfish?

Will it be too much for others to accept?

Will I be accepted or will I only make my family really sad?

Will I end up inflicting a lifetime of worry?

How should I come out straight (pun again intended)? 

Should I continue my abstract writing?

Will a video sound dramatic, show off?

Who Am I really?

A recent simple and single thought of making a table of "what I like about myself and what I hate" had made me the most scared till date, I guess; even more than those memoirs I have previously penned or planned to pen. The scare is so deep as of now that I have been hastily trying to even ward off my thoughts feeling that I won't have anything to like about myself; anything that is visible to the world. Transient occupied for the physical part by being shallow?

I am just so tired. I think why me and why I can not be normal but..

Then I think of the two recent thoughts that have been helping me survive a severe breakdown.

First:

"Never act permanent decisions on temporary feelings"

However I am struggling really hard to know what really are my permanent feelings. Are my emotional outbursts temporary, because of loneliness and scared to go out in the world outside my cocoon and stop being scared of getting a bruise and just play like a child becuase its playing is what that every little child wants to, no matter how shabbily dressed or muddled up in dirt. Evening means playing.

Second: 

"Cinderella never asked for a prince. She asked for a night off and dress. Like not once did she says, "I want a prince to come and rescue me from my situation." She just wanted to look cute and turn the fuck up at the party."

The above is not a new thought I came across but don't know why I did not remember it. I mean, it speaks so much volume. Isn't it a most worthy extension of be getting love for being who you are, every ounce of yourself.

Writing every single word above is suddenly making full sense of the title of this blog. I only have to understand to whom is the title addressed to. It is a short film's title that must have given an nth view today, just before beginning this blog post, but somehow I felt I noticed little emotional moments I never did before. Maybe when I do the same with myself, I will know what really are my temporary feelings and what permanent self defining.

I am sure that day I will know what I want. Protect Me From What I Want, no more that day.

Zaroorat - A Karma ??

We tend to flip-flop multiple lives of our past and our future aspirations in our present, but the present only stays as one and before we recognise how it is going, it keeps slipping every second of our life.

I would not call anything "sacrifice" for my life as for everything I did let go, there was a very concious decision. At least that's how I would always like to see. Growing up, accepting myself, learning to love who I am and carving a better me from the broken pieces, I am who I turned to become - consciously or subconsciously - however it may be "prudent" to put the facts straight. Nevertheless it feels losing a part of you of what could have been a multi-tasking and better time-managed and a more sensible you. Alas, life is not Perfect. Not that I complain or am here to scribe my frustration. I just want to pen the thoughts in my head, and let my mind be free.

I just re-watched this episode of the beloved F.R.I.E.N.D.S series. Series 6, Episode 6, The One with the Last Night. Towards the end, Monica hugs Rachel with an emotional Goodbye as the latter moves out of their apartment owing to Monica and Chandler deciding to live-in. Monica closes the door with a reminiscence and walks straight into Rachael's room where she later tells Chandler, "She really left". As an audience I have always felt emotional in moments like this. But today was more.

It's all about change - about letting it go. Yes, change is inevitable. It is the only constant, as I even wrote in my last blog. But this time it was like a metaphor to my life - of letting past go but not let present slip away. I have been so feeling wretched and scared in my life that I purposely shut out many people from my lives. I guess I was nothing but scared, with my life staying there and everyone moving ahead in life. I was ambitious, I still I am, but I really needed nothing but just work to concentrate in life. I don't know how the time went by - professionally I can recall it but personally I so not.

I first really realised this when I got paid on 7th March 2014. From joining my career in Journalism on 13th May 2013 with News 24 Assignment Desk, I did nothing to enhance my personal life. But I did not really miss as my career was my soul priority. But after getting paid, I realised I did not really have anyone to tell - or hug - or even enjoy with. My family was happy, but am a distant child to my own blood-parents. They still don't know me and it's not their fault as I am still exploring myself, accepting a part every moment perhaps to complete me and make me a whole again.

The show's episode brought back my empty solitary nights as does the first few lines of the song, "Zaroorat"

यह दिल तनहा कयूं रहे

कयूं हम टुकड़ों मे जिये

कयूं रूह मेरी यह सहे

मैं अधूरा जी रहा हूं

हर दम यह कह रहा हूं

मुझे तेरी ज़रूरत है.. मूझे तेरी ज़रूरत है..

It's a song I just heard a day back but it's like it speaks to me. Not the entire song because then I have to be really wretched or wrecked (*thank-GOD-smiley-face*) 

If I have to be honest - Yes, I want to be in a relationship. To be loved with that hug that makes all exertion and worries wane away in a flash. To have someone to hold on to when I want to break away from even myself. To be with  But deep down inside I know am still working out with the relationship I am in with myself. It's at the end stage of full acceptance, with all the follies that I will eventually work well without any compromise to regret. It's scary every moment but it's adventurous thinking upon the journey I have been through. I don't know which alloy I will finally take shape after all this gruelling, but I know whatever it be - it will be my very own self.

I may feel having a fucked up life but I wish to have a seamless fucking laugh when I get with you. Faith and that Belief in Life, is what I am always on. My Karma is the closest I will be to my soul; Zaroorat is for the mirror of life cleaning. Till then, I gotta get going. I gotta keep moving.

Movie or Life - Brokeback Got Me Good!

There are times when you really want to do something but are scared that you will break doing it, even if you are meant to break. It's like the change that is meant to be for you survival or you will suffocate but you still don't want to change.

Change - the only constant. how weird is the life we live in; the only life we get to live. However when the time comes and you finally take the plunge, it feels good. Good that the emotions you were scared to feel are now a reality and you know what it feels. Belief becomes reality and what can be better than reality - because no matter how harsh is the reality, it is yours to live and make a better future out of it.

Just watched Ang Lee's 2005 Oscar Winning 'Brokeback Mountain' - this film I always wanted to for the past 9 years, since school days, but was really scared. Scared of seeing a glimpse of my imagined wretched future, scared of seeing what I may turn into in my quest for love beyond the physical aspect... scared of myself doing the same knowing how my actions will turn into... scared of being myself I did not and could not understand.

I don't think I can write a review for it but only review my inner war. I am not any of the character, yet I feel I have lived their life. It's weird because how can I live the life of the wives of Ennis and Jack; or for that matter Ennis's 19 year old daughter (as we see her last) or of Jack's parents. But I know I lived their life in my head every single moment of my growing up till date, thinking about the effect of my decisions on the people I love - my family and my friends.

I don't know how I would have been otherwise had past was different, I don't know the 'germ' that moment was first sown.. so I ain't Charles Xavier from Marvel's 'X-Men: Days of the Future Past'. I feel like Alexander Hartdegen from C.W.Lewis's 'The Time Machine' who realised no matter how many time he try to change the past, he will only end up seeing himself hit by his present in one hundred different ways than what 101th which has already happened.

Strangely though, both Charles and Alexander were Professors. *now-smiling*

But now as I finished watching the film, I feel I am a changed man. I know my priorities in life. I know myself. Yes I am very scared, as coming from a very long time of personal struggle, I am reaching the end of my battle with my true self and what the world expects for me to be accepted. But didn't I knew that the ending is always the most trying, just like beginning a journey. I knew that, from Gurbani and from many good books, articles and life experiences I was luckily destined to have my comprehension from. I can not give up now.

As Mitchell reminds Jay in 'Modern Family',

"I don't get it, but if that's who you are, don't you dare be ashamed of it."

Perfect Two: Feeling the Heartbeat ♥

I have been often asked, by myself and others, what love means to me and my reply has always been defined by the phase of my life I am in. But whatever may be my views about Love, I believe for one thing that there is innocence even in the maturity of it.

I know this kid very well who used to feel love in a single smile and that twinkling in the eyes, who had stories about his own marriage and raising a happy and loving family, who dreamed big always but felt happiest in the pictures of the little row houses in the suburb when it came to choosing his love nest, who used find his own love in the happiness of the person with him, who used to find the night as romantic as and the morning, the rains or the spring, the mountains or the beaches, the summers or the winters, the ice-cream or the jalebi... love meant happiness in every little moment, every little thing, every little hand-shake, every little hug, every little hey and every little laugh.

He has grown up now... grown up with tough times, grown up with strengths he did no know he had in himself... grown up learning how to lie and to abuse, to hate and to curse... but the heart has not changed, and so he has finally decided of being with as few as he can. He may be critical for his ocd habits but he knows how to count the blessings. He will have to lose a lot of people he know of, some of whom his heart still feel that they may someday understand, but he has to move on. Soul-mates (partner, family or friend) sometimes may not know they are indeed soul-mates but they do care or at most wish the good for each other without any ego or arrogance.

He is most likely to be that starry-eyed always for the love in the life of realist and dreamers and he understands that the one and only thing required for him to discover the soul-mate of love and marriage in his life is to understand and accept who he is in reality. He knows, for all the hardships, every moment is the best time of his life because he is breathing the air and having heartbeats. He knows that climbing Mt Everest grows tough every moment of ascent but then again its the top of the world once the ascent is completed. He knows that "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

Want..Need..Desire..Dream..Wish..

They all surely mean differently in English language but they all are matters of the Heart and Soul, just like the song "Perfect Two" by Auburn. A relatively unknown song but with the innocence of eternal love which makes perfect sense for the kid I have known very well. He believes that love may be the most abused word according to the world but its the definition that is different for every individual. He talks from his experience of the heart and every moment is a blessing, no matter how tough. He knows that his heart will never stop believing in his own marriage and family, no matter the chuckles that may bring out to the present.

(: ♥   Laugh  Live  Love  ♥ :)

Twinkling Eyes and Tears of Fears

Lonely heart..
Confused soul..
Distraught mind..
Trembling fingers..
Welled up Teary Emotions!

This is how I am presently seeing myself. I have had lows in life, but this one seems the deepest ever. Trying to find a reason to smile, but not being able to. Wanted to write a blog yesterday, but just could not get the words for the clutter in my head like never before. Slept somehow after posting a heartfelt status update on my facebook account, maybe to keep a note of this moment too as I don't want to ever think that any other moment yet-to-happen can be any lower. Here is what I wrote from my mobile log-in:-

Ek ajeeb si bechaini ho rai hai.. So bhi na pa raha, likh bhi nai pa raha.. Aur mann me intni baatein hain ki samundar ki gehrai kam pad jaye.. Is mahine ki yeh raatein bohot yaadein samete hain.. Yaadon ke bhawar me mere tanha basere hai... Samajh nai pa raha meri zindagi kis darr ko sanjogey hai..

Adding to the woes, that is still burning the same emotions from the night in me, was the dream (or was it 'nightmare', I don't know) I had. It is very normal for me to have the same dream many times over, even with long time breaks and not necessarily on a regular basis. But this time I read the meaning of that dream, something unusual as I never considered it the way I am understanding it now. On a high rise building, walking through as I do my work but I have to jump from one corridor to another as there is no bridge and missing the huge jump means falling in deep trench like the gaps between mountains of Grand Canyon. It was exactly like being in a Hogwarts like place, except that the moving staircase had gone missing and I am completely alone in this huge hallowed castle.

Every time I needed to jump, my heart would start beating very strongly and very fumblingly. I would jump every time with success, sometimes at the exact corner from where I could slip. And suddenly move into a next dream. So as I realize, I was moving from one dream to another via this life-threatening jump. And I have been jumping this way for a way long time now, never realizing why I am doing it sub-consciously.

Dreamer, I always had been. Somehow a lot, but that was how my life took shape in loneliness. It also brought out the creative thirst in me, the wish to achieve excellence across varied spheres of life. And I have been. But have I really been jumping at life-risk without thinking about the consequences of the failure percentage? And have I been jumping too often than I need to for a normal and contented life? Have I been reckless all this while not caring about I am building for my history, largely because of the thrill of the present new avenue?

Everything this and more is now rushing in my mind, heart, body and soul and is scaring the scary bejesus death through my autobiography out of me.

To think all this feeling rushed in me after having one of the most beautiful and smiling night of my life. Life surely is a bundle full of mystery.

*strangely-smiling-in-amazement*

It was my school friend and my sister Ankita Dhingra's brother Varun bhaiya's wedding. The morning before going to the wedding was a distraught one, with big fight and arguments and shouting at home. Even the selection of clothes I was dressed in had turned me off for the function. But seeing Varun bhaiya on the horse as I arrived at the venue made me really feel nice. Whatever little bad mood was left in me also withered away when I accidentally checked myself in a big mirror at the wedding hall. I felt cute and smart. I don't if it was vanity but I just checked my face and felt super-good in a happy way, which is strange because I absolutely believe that I did not check how was I looking in my clothes. Just the smile that came on my face in a second of mirror view made me forget all the bad morning time.

Met few school friends and teachers at the wedding and we did reminisced some school memories. However my biggest excitement for a smiling time was seeing Varun bhaiya and bhabhi with each other. They really looked nice and sweet together (Varun bhaiya bit more). I would like to believe I have not seen a more beautiful and more natural looking bride before. God bless the two.

*reminiscing the beautiful picture of the new-couple*

The happiness I had in my heart because of the wedding, in a sense, turned out to the be the reason for my despair after reaching home. I just could not help but realize how sweet Varun bhaiya looked as the bride-groom. The sweet and nice guy entering into a holy matrimony with a beautiful bride who makes a beautiful couple picture with him as they stood together with family and friends coming over and wishing them along with a lovely picture with the couple. As I thought further about it, I realized how much getting married has been a childhood dream of mine. Memories started pouring in of the 4th-5th standard little innocent school boy rejoicing in telling his class friends in school corridors about his wedding to pop stars Anamika and many others. Memories that I had completely forgotten of the dreamy boy, the dreamy boy who has now grown up to be a bundle of insecurities and is each day struggling to be a better and his o.c.d. free self - all alone, all by his self as being by his-own self has also become a habit he would dearly like to let go off forever.

Till this very moment, I used to believe that I always dreamed of being a father to my own child, but never really wishes for a marriage - though being in love and having a loved one is definitely a wish too. But now I realize how much 'normal' I always wanted myself to be. The normal boy somehow got lost for an insecure dreamer whose lifestyle has become so half-hazard for his own check that he is scared and want to cry over someones shoulder, someone he can actually call his own. I tremble with fear of not being that groom, that groom with a secured life to confidently make someone else his life. The boy went for all the things above normal and exciting to share when achieved but lost the little things that actually make life.

I know have never known myself this good (possibly, "clearly") and better now than never for a sooner self-betterment but the present time has already made me myself put lots of challenges to overcome, as in my addiction, my health, my career and my life, that having come to terms with this make the present time an extra-ordinary paradox of the worst and may-be the best ever time of my life. Add to it this, exactly this time last year I proposed somebody after falling in love for the first and only time.

I hope there is someone for me too in this world and the sooner will be the time for us to meet, just like the sooner I will grow up from my every insecurity, with a simple but loving Beach Marriage to start with as the little boy might have wished for his family and small circle of friends.